A Conversation with Festival Director Jim Hoffman, "Hollywood Queer Short Film Festival", Founders MCC Church, by James Scarborough

As LGBTQ+ visibility faces new threats, the Hollywood Queer Short Film Festival opens in October with a sense of urgency. Under Jim Hoffman's direction, this year's theme - “Visibility is Resistance" - serves as both rallying cry and curatorial theme. The festival offers substantial submission discounts to film students, framing participation as an act of cultural preservation.

This places HQSFF in a tradition of queer film festivals that have long defended cultural expression. Hoffman explicitly connects artistic expression to political resistance, rejecting art as mere entertainment. The festival's programming embraces diverse content - experimental works, comedies and explicit material. This suggests that varied queer expression itself resists oppression.

HQSFF stands out for its focus on different generations. By courting student filmmakers particularly, the festival recognizes cinema's unique capacity to document and shape cultural narratives across time. Today's student films may serve as tomorrow's historical documents of resistance. Whether this strategy produces films of artistic excellence beyond their political message remains to be seen, but the festival's clear purpose offers promising foundation.

Below follows an email conversation with Jim Hoffman.

JS: Your festival theme Visibility is Resistance frames queer cinema as inherently political. How do you balance this political imperative with artistic considerations when selecting films?

JH: When the government is trying to erase us from the public consciousness altogether, all films with queer content are inherently political. That includes comedies, romantic stories, documentaries, dramas, everything.

JS: You’ve implemented an aggressive student outreach strategy with substantial submission discounts. Beyond broadening your submission pool, what specific qualities or perspectives do you hope student filmmakers will bring to this year’s program?

JH: This is the demographic we have to reach if we want freedom and democracy to survive in this country. They have the most to lose if MAGA wins, so it should be easy. But it’s still a challenge, because a lot of them don’t believe their ideas matter. Hopefully, filmmakers are the exception, and we want to amplify their impact.

JS: The festival accepts diverse content including comedies and experimental work alongside more overtly political pieces. Can humor and formal experimentation function as forms of resistance equally powerful as direct political statement?

JH: Absolutely. I think of the strategy Harvey Milk used to win the Proposition 6 campaign in 1978: he urged everyone to come out (of the closet), because people who knew someone who was queer would more likely vote our way. It worked. I believe any honest portrayal of queer people, including comedies and experimental work, can have a similar beneficial effect.

JS: Your promotional materials directly reference MAGA policies and warn against the slide into dictatorship. How do you respond to those who might argue that such explicit political positioning might alienate potential allies or narrow your audience?

JH: If they attend our festival, they won’t believe superficial crap like that.

JS: Film festivals often serve as both cultural archives and incubators for emerging voices. Looking beyond this year’s event, how do you envision HQSFF’s role in preserving queer cinema history while fostering its future?

JH: To be honest, things are moving so fast and so radically right now, it’s impossible to speculate on an answer to this question. Obviously, by having a festival at all, we are engaged in a public act of faith that dignity and freedom will survive. But our species’ track record is not very encouraging, and if America disappears, it could be a very long time before we see a principled government again.

JS: You mentioned that Film Festivals have historically been in the forefront of the struggle for equal rights. Could you elaborate on specific festivals or landmark screenings that have influenced your approach to HQSFF?

JH: It’s been a slow and gradual process. Before big festivals like Outfest and Frameline tackled the job of educating the film-going public, if you saw someone queer on screen it would either be an effeminate queen, whose exaggerated mannerisms made their character something like blackface, or a sympathetic character who like as not would end their own life before the credits rolled. Read The Celluloid Closet by Vito Russo if you want examples of this.

Performances are Friday, October 4 and Saturday, October 5, 2025. Founders MCC Church is located at 4607 Prospect Avenue in Hollywood. For more information, click here.