The former program manager of Halifax’s Atlantic Film Festival has joined Toronto’s Inside Out LGBT Film and Video Festival as director of programming.
Andrew Murphy says the main difference between the East Coast festival, where he worked for 12 years, and the Toronto event is queer content.
“When the opportunity came up, I just started thinking about what is different and yet what is the same about a film festival celebrating queer content and a film festival celebrating all content,” he says. “Obvious differences aside, what it really came down to for me was story.”
“My new challenge is to research and deliver a top-drawer slate of films with vision, clarity and quality to Greater Toronto’s queer and queer-friendly film fans that will celebrate the experiences, discoveries, understandings and misunderstandings of our communities,” he says.
Murphy will soon head to the Berlin International Film Festival in search of shows for this year’s Inside Out Festival, which will run for its 22nd year in May.
“I am so impressed with their track record to represent and celebrate the queer community here and abroad,” Murphy says. “For 10 days we proudly sit in the dark with strangers, watching and learning about ourselves, our friends, our cultures. I am really excited to be a part of it this year. I welcome the challenge.”
Murphy will remain a part-time staffer at the Atlantic Film Festival and plans to divide his time between Toronto and Halifax.
“I never pictured myself doing what I do for a living,” he says. “I learned everything from the bottom up and know first hand. Festivals don’t exist in a vacuum; it’s not as simple as picking titles out of a catalogue and booking a theatre. Festivals exist to bring stories from around the world home to one community to celebrate the art of filmmaking, film watching, with a curatorial eye to ensure that added-value experience of seeing it with the filmmaker or an actor.”
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