Ljubljana LGBT Film Festival


The Ljubljana LGBT Film Festival is an annual international LGBT film festival held in Ljubljana, Slovenia. It is the oldest film festival of its sort in Europe and also the oldest international film festival in Slovenia. It showcases films with nonheterosexual and non-cisgender topics.
The festival was launched in 1984 in the capital of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia, one of the six republics forming the country of Yugoslavia.
Screenings take place around 1 December – World AIDS Day, and the festival takes about a week.

History

When Slovenia was still part of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Ljubljana's Student Cultural Centre founded its gay section, called Magnus. The section organized the first edition of the festival as part of a wider festival on gay culture. It took place at several locations around Ljubljana: the ŠKUC Gallery, KinoŠkuc, The Ljubljana Faculty of Arts and Disko FV.
From then on, the festival has been held annually, with the exception of the year 1987. The fourth edition of the festival was, namely, banned by the state authorities due to an alleged fear of the AIDS epidemic.
The festival got limited financial resources from state and city authorities for years, so not all screenings in the history of the festival were translated into the Slovenian language. In 1996 the Slovenian Ministry of Culture banned screenings without translation into the Slovenian language, so the films of the 12th edition were translated simultaneously.
Since 1994, the main festival location has been either the Kinodvor or the Slovenska kinoteka. Since 2004, the Ljubljana LGBT Film Festival has had at least one screening location outside Ljubljana.
Since 2013, the best films of the festival are awarded prizes by the jury and by the audience. As dragon is the symbol of Ljubljana, the name of the Ljubljana LGBT Film Festival award is the Pink Dragon.
In 2018, the festival was supported by the Slovenian Film Centre for the first time in its history.

Awards

2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013