Celebrate queerness in the first-ever Southeast Asian Queer Cultural Festival!
Calling all queers, advocates, artists, and allies! It's the perfect time to come together to celebrate queerness in all its glory in the first-ever Southeast Asian Queer Cultural Festival 2021: "Be/Longings" or simply SEAQCF2021.
Celebrate queerness at the first-ever SEAQCF2021! Source: seaqcf.net
SEAQCF2021 serves as a virtual platform where advocates, artists, cultural workers, and allies can unite and express in unison their desire to reclaim, reimagine, insist on, and celebrate queer belongings in the region.
The virtual festival's theme features over 40 queer artists and activists from Cambodia, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Myanmar.
Its ultimate goal is to foster stronger bonds of regional community and further cultivate inclusiveness in the Southeast Asian region.
Some of the featured artworks and festivities include literary works, film documentaries, comedy shows, Southeast Asian drag show, musical performance, visual art, performance art, and many more.
SEAQCF is organized by the Southeast Asia Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression Caucus, ASEAN SOGIE Caucus for short or simply ASC.
ASC is an organization of human rights activists from Southeast Asia. They work for the inclusion of Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Gender Expression, and Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC) in the mandate of human rights duty bearers in the ASEAN region.
Furthermore, they also work for the promotion and protection of the human rights of all persons regardless of SOGIESC in the Southeast Asian region.
SEAQCF2021 is supported by Voice Global, an innovative grant facility funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, which aims to support rights holders and groups facing marginalization or discrimination.
Other SEAQCF2021 partners in the region are the CamASEAN and Micro Rainbow International in Cambodia, Hanoi Queer in Vietnam, Panggung Minoritas in Indonesia and the mujer LGBTQ and Iloilo Pride Team in the Philippines.
The SEAQCF2021 officially began on February 13, but activities are set to continue up until March 13, 2021.
The theme for the first-ever SEAQCF: “Be/Longings / Source: seaqcf.net
“Be/Longings”
The festival theme is a play on words, "being," "longings," and "belonging". The “being” represents the diversity of the identities of LGBTIQ people and the complexities that come with them. “Longings” represents the dreams and aspirations of having a more caring, inclusive and respectful community in the region. And finally, “belonging” is a way of asserting that the LGBTIQ people have always been part of the collective memories of the Southeast Asian community.
Two of the photos from the DIWATA photography project / Photos by: Renz Botero, Natu Xantino and Ram Botero (seaqcf.net)
Filipino artists featured
In the visual arts category, there's a proudly Pinoy photography project called DIWATA. It was inspired by queer reading or queering mythology and features photos of reimagined pre-colonial deities.
The stunning photos are creations of Pinoy visual artists Renz Botero, Natu Xantino and Ram Botero.
In SEAQCF2021's website, the visual arts trio explained the inspiration behind their work.
Part of their project's description reads: “While homoerotic and gender non-conforming narratives can be found in pre-colonial Philippine mythology, only fragments remain, and their authenticity is still contested.
“Just as mythology is not historically accurate, our reimagination of pre-colonial deities transcends history to represent true experiences. It is a celebration of our boundless capacity to transform.”
“Pagsulat Duag” by Iloilo Pride Team / Source: seaqcf.net
In the literary works category, there are three featured works by Filipino artists:
1. A/PART An Anthology of Queer Southeast Asian Poetry in the Pandemic, edited by Rodrigo Dela Peña.
2. Pagsulat Duag by Iloilo Pride Team
3. Be Me LGBTQIA+ Stories of Belonging, edited by Joel Donato Ching Jacob and Daphne Lee
A scene from film 'Wa, Nan' / Source: seaqcf.net
There are also four proudly Pinoy made masterpieces in the film and animation category:
1. Animation piece Agony/Ecstasy by Jose Santos P. Ardivilla
2. Comedy-drama travel film Wa, Nan by Marie Bernadette Tayag, Eliza Santos, and Danette Orlido
3. Short film about a lesbian family called My Mamily by Cha Roque
4. A coming of age film about LGBT members in Mindanao titled Budjang by Mujer LGBT
Plus, there's a fabulous digital drag show featuring drag artists from all over Southeast Asia called “home(un)bound: A Southeast Asian Digital Drag Fest,” where Filipino drag queens Deedee Marie Holliday and Mrs. Tan will be performing.
If you want to join in on the celebration, check out the schedule posted on the official Facebook page of SEAQCF 2021.
For more lifestyle content, head out to GMA's Lifestyle page.
Check out also the gallery of inspiring Filipino LGBT celebrity couples: