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PREVIEW: Gay Film Nights festival opens in Romania on November 14

Graham Robson November 9, 2016

The annual international film festival Serile Filmului Gay (SFG) or Gay Film Nights takes place in the Romania city of Cluj-Napoca from November 14-20.

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Hosted by human rights organisations Be an Angel Romania and PSI, the festival will present a wide variety of movies, short films and documentaries from all over Europe focusing on LGBT+ topics from childhood crushes to pride parades in homophobic countries. There will also be Q&As with respective directors, debates, exhibitions, workshops, book presentations and parties

Lucian Dunăreanu
Lucian Dunăreanu

As the festival enters its 11th year Lucian Dunăreanu executive director of Be An Angel Romania and organiser of the SFG said: “There’s a lot of hope compared to when the festival began.

“With every festival, our message reaches more people, and the public is getting used to the idea that we exist and that we’re not different once they get to know us”.

Even though the screenings will be centered around LGBT+ topics, everyone is welcome to attend.

Gay Film Night aims to not only provide visibility for the LGBT+ community and celebrate LGBT+ culture, but also to dismantle prejudices and initiate a dialogue between communitities.

This goal is particularly relevant in Romania, as a campaign by  Coalitia pentru Familie (Coalition for the family), calling for the constitution to be amended to exclusively define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, has recently been able to gather over three million signatures.

Same-sex marriage is not permitted by the Civil Code in Romania, and homosexuality is widely met with disgust, intolerance and hate crimes.

For example, one out of two Romanians say they would not have a meal with a gay person. One out of three Romanians would not be willing to see a gay doctor and 84 percent of Romanians would not drink from the same cup as a gay person.

Dunăreanu continued: “We hope that each edition of the festival will help take down the walls between the rest of society and the LGBT community”.

Entry to the festival will be free.

For more information, click here:

 

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