Queer Sarajevo Festival 2009 - Festival as any other

This year’s second QSF begins on September 24th, 2009, and it carries the message of peace, freedom, tolerance and understanding of diversity, as well as encourages nobility, love and collectiveness.

Our intention this year was to gather artists and activists who through their everyday work and effort bring attention to taboo issues and bring those issues closer to the public of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as the region.

Due to experiences from last year’s Festival, when organizers, guests and activists faced and experienced violence in the most sever way, organizers opted for a different concept of organizing. QSF 2009 will be presented from September 24-28 through billboards throughout the whole State, TV video clip and paper ads in daily and weekly papers in BiH. Therefore, it excludes exhibits, performances and workshops. This decision has been guided by our intent to avoid public gatherings taking into consideration safety of all people who would participate and/or visit the Festival.

Artists who are part of this year’s Festival, through concrete visual and art works express their own thoughts about today’s society.

Our desire is to promote the Festival as an idea of culture and arts that promote diversity in equality and to shed the stereotypes and assumptions about queer persons, offering a glimpse of truth about diversity heading in the direction toward tolerance, so that we can jointly discover and realize diversity in the most positive way.

Organization Q