The Southeast Asia Queer Cultural Festival (SEAQCF) 2021: Be/Longings is a virtual festival that will feature over forty (40) queer artists, advocates and allies from Cambodia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Myanmar.

Featured works and events range from films and documentaries, musical performances, visual art, online exhibit, performance art, literary works, a comedy show, a Southeast Asian drag
show, and heaps more.

The festival theme is ‘Be/Longings’. Be/Longings is a play on the words, “longings”, and “belonging”. “Longing”, which translates to kerinduan in Bahasa Indonesia or Bahasa Melayu, and pangungulila in Filipino, represents our yearnings and dreams for a region that is genuinely caring, inclusive, and respectful of diversity.

“Belonging” asserts that LGBTIQ people have always been part of the collective memories of the Southeast Asian community — way before the creation of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its member States.

Organisers say this festival is a collective effort among LGBTIQ people in the region to challenge our exclusion, invisiblisation, and persecution by governments and other institutions, and to reimagine an inclusive Southeast Asian community.

Advocates, artists and cultural workers will come together to share cultural works that reclaim, reimagine, and insist on LGBTIQ belonging in the region, and to build stronger bonds of regional community.

The online festival will feature visual art, literary works, performance art, comedy performances, dance works and musical numbers. There’s also heaps of films from the region including films created in Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, The Philippines and Indonesia.

You’ll also be able to take a look at drag shows from performers who strut their stuff around the region including Thailand’s Buttstreet Boys, Walkie Talkie from Myanmar, Malaysia’s Kumela Kumslut, and Singapore’s Becca Debus (what a name!).

Find out more on their website, check them on Instagram and give them a follow on Facebook.

OIP Staff

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