Art200: International Queer Culture Festival

art200 is a queer cultural festival in Bucharest, Romania. Queer is an umbrella term for the LGBT community: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender. The festival’s main purpose is to encourage queer filmmaking, expression and collaboration between local queer artists, to encourage just and complex representations of LGBTQ+ characters in movies, to promote equality and solidarity through art and culture. The project has the following components:
– An educational component, which includes literature, film, dance workshops, as well as masterclasses and discussions;
– The festival per-se, which includes film screenings, literature readings, concerts, performance.

We are organizing art200 because we realize how important it is to encourage queer film-making in Romania. There are very few LGBTQ+-themed film productions in Romania: only up to six or seven shorts are produced every year. We believe that the existence of the festival itself will encourage more filmmakers to produce queer film because of the fact that there is a space dedicated to them, where they can create collaborations, exchange ideas and discuss their works.

At the same time, art200 aims to show the general public complex and just representations of LGBTQ+ people, especially when it comes to intersectional identities, in the context in which this group constantly faces discrimination, violence and stereotypes.