Hello,
I have pleasure to confirm, that the 2nd edition of Queer Film Festival in Lodz, Poland “a million different loves!?” after one year break is finally coming up! Since this is the first post on this blog, I’d like to introduce myself and the event.
I’m Pawel Solodki and my official function during the festival is an artistic director. Though the function sounds quite formal, my role is simply based on coordinating all the aspects of “amdl!?”. Apart from the festival, I spend my time on spreading some queer air at the University of Lodz, where I started to work one year ago. The lectures I give focus on gender and queer studies, exploitation film, cinema of transgression, etc. Well, you might say I’m more interested in non-normative forms and topics in audiovisuals, rather then on “classics”. And of course, my attitude makes an influence on the conception and programme of “a million different loves!?” festival.
As many of you might have heard, Poland isn’t paradise for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals or transexuals. Sometimes you might notice that even postulates of the 2nd wave of feminism aren’t quite absorbed by the Polish society (though it proceeds). It forces many people to ask the question: is there any sense in implementing queer theory in Poland - questioning both heteronormativity and gay and lesbian exclusiveness - when actually there is no LGBT society here, and individual people are threatened more with homophobia most of the time, especially in small towns, then with “homo-normativity”. I simply belive, that presenting as many kinds of love as possible - regarding sex, gender, race, class, sexual practices, etc. - dissolves the strict boundries. Hence, there is no one “proper”, “decent”, “normal” kind of love - there is at least a million different kinds of it! This is the only statement of the festival and its reason to exist: to create a platform, which will make it possible to show all the ways! Since we have started our action just two years ago, there is a lot of it before us 
In the next post I will try to present the history of the “amillion different loves!?” festival.
