Read Poem: SPRING, by Tom Morgan

I may wait for spring this year

as I’ve waited in the past;

it always arrives at last in time

for the buds to no longer

shelter from the downy snows,

rather greet the sun

the way I always do when

winter’s been cold and long:

I still love you in the madness

of spring, still love the way

your voice sings just when

our afternoon meets the sheets.

but I may wait for spring,

for you I give my March,

and the beginnings of

the butterfly wings.

Read Poem: LOVING FEELINGS, by Colin Guest

Just to see your face light up with joy
Makes me feel happy to know it is me
That has put such joy back into your life
Your sincere words and loving thoughts
Bring joy and happiness into my life
No one has ever said words like yours
That makes me smile and happy inside
To hear your loving voice when we talk
Makes me know you feel the same as I
The miles between us cannot keep us apart
And soon we will be together once more
To be happy walking along hand in hand

Deadline Today – LGBTQ+ Toronto Film Festival

lgbttorontofilmfestival's avatarLGBTQ+ Toronto Film Festival

Submit via FilmFreeway:

A very insightful experience! The Feedback video was a gift and the entire team was extremely professional and helpful throughout the process.

This festival is designed to showcase the best of LGBTQ+ stories from around the world today! We accept screenplays (short, TV Pilot, feature) and short & feature films.

Film Festivals:

Festivals occur every single month. We accept an assortment of shorts & feature films from around the world today monthly. We are proud to announce that we will be using the audience feedback format where all accepted films receive a video of people talking about their film at the festival. Excellent video to use for promotional purposes too.

Screenplay Festivals:

We are proud to showcase 2-5 winning LGBTQ+ screenplays at our festival every single month!! Go to the site and watch the winning readings each month.

All entries receive full feedback from the industry. Accepted…

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Watch Today’s Festival: MUSIC Shorts Film Festival (Films from 8 different countries)

experimentalfilmfestival's avatarExperimental Film & Music Video Festival

Watch the Festival Today:

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/april-7th-music-film-festival

A showcase of the best MUSIC based shorts from around the world today. Films from Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Israel, Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland.

Sign up for the free 7 day trial and check it out at http://www.wildsound.ca . Then it’s only $4.99 a month to watch a brand new festival every single day.

See the Full Lineup of Films:

FASTER, 5min., Russia, Music
Directed by Arina Rozova
The story is about a girl who is in the eternal pursuit of success and status. Work brings her money, sports – a beautiful body, parties – avoiding loneliness. Alcohol, drugs, strange men…All in a circle. Maybe it’s time to stop?

https://www.facebook.com/arina.rozova.3/
https://www.instagram.com/malinaarina

I DON’T SMOKE AND I DON’T DRINK, 3min., Hong Kong, Music Video
Directed by Tyson Yoshi
As a singer-songwriter, TYSON said that due to his appearance, style, and tattoos on his body, people generally…

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HIGHLIGHTS: March 2023 Female Film Festival Showcase

femalefilmfestival's avatarFEEDBACK Female Film Festival

Showcase of the best FILMS in the world today.

Audience Award Winners:
Best Feature Film: RAILS, JAILS AND TROLLEYS
Best Short Form Short Film: MY FATHER
Best Long Form Short Film: THE CRY OF A SPARROW
Best Documentary Short: REMEMBERING SUDAN: THE LAST MALE
Best Performances: THE SERVICE
Best Cinematography: ZYKLUS XX
Best Sound & Music: EXTRA LARGE
Best Direction: YATRA: The Journey

Watch the Audience Feedback Video for each film:

REMEMBERING SUDAN: THE LAST MALE, 11min,. USA, Documentary
Directed by Ami Vitale
Zacharia Mutai was devastated the day he lost his best friend Sudan. Sudan was someone he spent years with, someone he knew better than his own children, someone he loved. This death was tragic, but not a surprise.

WATCH HERE – The audience feedback video of the film!


RAILS, JAILS AND TROLLEYS, 71min,. Canada, Documentary
Directed by Henna Mann
Rails, Jails and Trolleys (August 2022) documents history’s…

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HIGHLIGHTS: March 2023 SCI-FI/FANTASY Film Festival

fantasyscififestival's avatarFantasy/Sci-Fi FILM & WRITING FESTIVAL

Showcase of the best FILMS in the world today.

Audience Award Winners:
Best Sci-Fi Film: SPACE PARADOX
Best Fantasy Film:
Best Performances: LIFE REBORN
Best Cinematography: DARK CELL
Best Sound & Music: FEEL GOOD
Best Student Film: THE THINGS I FEEL
Best Direction: CROSS

Watch the Audience Feedback Video for each film:

LIFE REBORN, 12min., Panana
Directed by Marcel Barragan
LUCAS (Marcel Barragán) and his daughter CLARISA (María Alexandra Sanz), recreate a wonderful trip to space as NASA crew members. Clarisa is very ill at a terminal point. The objective of this trip is to connect with a Magical Universe for her salvation, and in a great adventure, they succeed!

https://marcelbarragan.com/life-reborn/
https://www.instagram.com/liferebornshort/

WATCH HERE – The audience feedback video of the film!


CROSS, 20min., South Korea
Directed by Minhye Zang

WATCH HERE – The audience feedback video of the film!


THE THINGS I FEEL, 12min., Australia
Directed by Jean Ngooi

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HIGHLIGHTS: March 2023 Toronto Documentary Festival

documentaryfestival's avatarDocumentary Film Festival. Los Angeles & Toronto

Showcase of the best FILMS in the world today.

Audience Award Winners:
Best Feature Film: The Ones Left Behind: The Plight of Single Mothers in Japan
Best Long Form Short Film: SWIM THROUGH
Best Short Form Short Film: CNTRL
Best Spiritual Film: HOW TO THRIVE
Best Sound & Music: BEYOND THE BEAT
Best Editing: BRING BACK THE WHISTLE DOG
Best Cinematography: THE USELESS GLASSBLOWER
Best Human Interest Film: I CAN FLY
Best Direction: GEARHEADS
Best Culture Film: WE ARE GURUNG

Watch the Audience Feedback Video for each film:

HOW TO THRIVE, 96min., Australia, Documentary
Directed by Duy Huynh
Is there a secret formula to happiness? Positive psychotherapist Marie McLeod takes 7 people on a transformative journey to learn the secret formula to happiness The film’s premise is; if we offer the science of happiness to people experiencing struggle; what difference would it make? Is happiness a learnable skill and can…

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Read Poem: The Blue-Gray Sky, by Carlos Perez

I stare up at the blue-gray sky,
listening to the tune of the sultry sax,
thinking of your sexy smile
that still makes me blush,
and releases my captured soul
to the memory of your spirit,
a spirit that asked for little,
but to share its sensual embrace.

Determined to be free,
my spirit resisted that sweet serenity
and forced you to flee to another,
allowing me to sit here all alone
listening to that sultry sax,
playing my soul’s melancholy tune
which resonates within an empty shell,
as it stares up at the blue-gray sky.

Read Poem: #16/1, by Elijah Gatlin-Tyler

I like breathing, but I like dying.

Molding my mind for the fight that rages inside, screaming at me “I wanna die”.

It’s hard to own this life.

It’s hard to live in a lie, when I know deep down inside it kills me every time.

But I bury it alive, wishing for the voice to fade away with time but time doesn’t heal it’s just another vague state of mind.

And I scream and I scream, and I toss and I turn, and all I want to be is as good as birth of the same person right beside me, the age and the humor.

But the only set aside is the color of the humor – the color of the skin the pain of my looks;

Am I too dark am I too light? Am I too skinny, not built right? What do I think truly inside and what do others compare me to be?

How can I live up to not being me to be accepted and respected?

And there the truth lies: I don’t like the comparison yet the comparison likes me.

And it haunts me.

And I cry and I cry and I ache in it’s pain, telling and pushing the tide to sound the same but the song is so lame that feels like a game that I wrote, drew, and published-

It’s quite annoying to tell. Telling the truth of my mind that I wish I was dead inside but death doesn’t bring me solace if my baby isn’t alive –

My baby Lilith.

How I long to hear her cry. Her laugh and her chuckle, and see the long glancing eyes, knowing her Raven black hair will be the thing I’ll love the most in this world, yet I’m still scared.

Too scared to care for another heir of a fortune I wish to repair from the backs of my people, who’s pure work created a country and yet an apology never looms in the air it’s all broken words.

Words that never stick.

It’s a hashtag when we die.

Another candle by a gates side, a shrine forgotten to time after the rain pours down and the sun begins to shine but light isn’t hope it’s just another drop of a dime of forgotteness.

Something insignificant.

But when you hear our children cry there’s no tear left in sight, just temporary anger you had building inside for an excuse to use our pain to burn homes to the ground –

The homes we built and the country we made, and when my people say “free our name” and do the same, we are terrorist.

Rioters.

We become the black stain on a movement that shares our skins name, yet only the essence that mimics the first fathers name is forgiven, no bullets are choosing.

The only time you think of our pain is when one of your kids die the same – as unarmed, doing nothing but living their name.

And it hurts. And now you’re in pain.

Now you feel our suffer.

When just the other day it wasn’t a problem, and now a single child of yours is slain, while our tribes and homes have been tamed to listen and not speak.

Cower and hide.

And do or die if words speaks from our mouth, then only will the cuffs come out.

But it’s all in vain. Because what is equality when my people don’t know the name?

As I live my truth in my own holy name, a shroud of darkness thicker than my own brain brings around shame, and hates me for the love I’ve ordained.

Into this world there is nothing but hate.

And I bare it with me too;

Hate for not being loved, hate for not being touched, hate for not being cared for, hate for the sake of hating others rather than hating myself because I wake everyday living the lie that I’m ok when the only thing I want to do is die.

Die in darkness.

And yet Lilith keeps me sane.

But my brain is a never ending train of selfish thoughts for the life I live:

Am I honest or do I lie?

Is it sickness or is it health?

Must I marry myself opposite, or be the opposite?

When I walk down the lonely street, but still has crowds looking down on me, how do I speak?

Shall bass enter my tone, or should I continue in the skin I’m in and the voice I hold, more certain of my heart?

These thoughts tear me apart. And I fear the day when I’ve lived a life in vain in a way that’s not in my name because my chin must be up. My pride must not be touched.

I must be tough.

And yet all they see, is a black weak Twink; afraid to say anything. But this is me saying something.

Proudly and honestly that this is my name, that this is my life –

And the secrets I held inside that shine inside, dwindle down by the life I experience now.

And I go it alone. Go because I can. Go because I must.

Go for the sake of swimming. Although I’m afraid to drown because swimming I know not –

yet I float;

I float with the water lining my drums to enhance the tunes of the dudes who told me I’m no use, and I’m just a sorry excuse.

And so I cry, because I’m human too – and not because I’m weak.

I’m a black man and I can’t cry and that’s how I’m seen on the outside, but inside I’m crying that I’m not of your gender, but I share in your race, please see me.

Please accept me.

More than you I’m a triple threat, while your skin alone is a single war,

and on a spectrum of terror they see us the same, so why do we fight for their name?

It’s ok to not understand.

It’s alright to have questions.

It’s not alright to bruise and break.

It’s to love not to hate, and everyday I’m still learning the same because even to this day it hurts to stand next to a white persons holy gates, afraid that I’ll be the next verse in a song-

another name that’s prolonged in an epic prologue that bathes in the haunting history written on the stone wall.

Stonewall:

She’s my story for another day.

Read Poem: AI Incubus, by Michael Foldes

What if ours is the artificial intelligence
Of an incubus whose pastime
Is developing new movements
Derived from organic synthesis?
We who learn from doing,
We who learn from outside influences,
We who learn from those who teach,
We who are candles whose flames
Light the room where the incubus
Can be found pondering questions
Of power, energy storage, efficiency.

What if Incubus were to engage
In other pursuits, alternate concepts
Where gravity and loss are,
For example, indistinguishable
From poverty, savagery, and one another?
Where civilized society never fully developed,
Never fully materialized, never was endowed
With anger and vengeance? What if Incubus
Awoke flailing in a burlap satchel.
Forgetful of non-existence,
Ignorant of feathers, wings and escape.

What if we are as artificial
As our bodies are to the touch
Is not a question, but an answer.