CiTR

Brandon Yan (he/him) is the executive director of Out On Screen, which sees a return to queer programming with the arrival of the highly anticipated 35th annual Vancouver Queer Film Festival (VQFF) running now August 10th through the 20th. He joined Out On Screen eighth years ago and has been a key team member for the annual festival. Yan was previously the education director for Out in Schools and was then named deputy executive director in December 2018 and subsequently became the interim executive director, ultimately becoming the organization’s executive director.

The Vancouver Queer Film Festival is available this year online and in person with a creative theme of “Stronger Together” inviting audiences to come back, reconnect and stand in our joy. showcasing 11 days of outstanding cinema, live performances, community-building events, and great parties, Running now from Aug. 10th-20th, VQFF will offer up 92 films (24 features and 68 shorts) from 27 countries. Among that programming will be 10 world premieres, 10 North American/international premieres and 31 Canadian premieres. Passes and full programming and ticket info are available now on the website at www.queerfilmfestival.ca
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J. Logan Smilges, (they/them) is a queer, trans, and disabled scholar at the University of British Columbia and author of the new book, Crip Negativity (University of Minnesota Press). Logan is an American ex-pat living in Vancouver.

“Crip negativity” refers to the bad feelings felt by disabled, debilitated, and otherwise non-normatively embody minded folks while we're living in a world structured by ableism.

In the thirty years since the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law, the lives of disabled people have not improved nearly as much as activists and politicians had hoped. In Crip Negativity, J. Logan Smilges shows us what’s gone wrong and what we can do to fix it.

Among the central arguments in Crip Negativity is that all people are entitled to feel badly, even if their bad feelings are inconvenient or undesirable to others. Too often disabled people are expected to be happy or grateful when the bare minimum effort is expended to make their lives livable.

Crip Negativity was published as an open-access book with all proceeds and merch sales donated to Mountain Area Abortion Doula Collective (MAADCo), a disabled-led and volunteer-run reproductive justice organization based in North Carolina. Reach out to JL on Instagram @JLSmilges