X Factor star Marcus Collins to co-host queer cultural diversity media festival of films, conversations & performances

Queer Media this October will host Fusion to celebrate the stories of the LGBT Black, Asian and ethnic minority community with conversations with LGBT media professionals, interspersed with LGBT themed short films and performances. As part of Black History Month and partnered with UK Black Pride our aim is to inspire positive LGBT stories and promote LGBT visibility in the media.

Fusion at the Compass Room at The Lowry, Sunday 19th October 2014, 12pm to 8pm with registration from 11am.

Films : Conversations : Performances

Fusion asks can storytelling really empower people to create positive social change within their community?

Indie Go-Go

Tickets

Fusion: Fighting for LGBT visibility in the media

“Help us develop a voice for a new 21st century LGBT community through telling narratives of wholeness, connection and power,” said Queer Media director Jamie Starboisky. “We want to touch people’s lives by telling empowering and inspirational stories through films, conversations and performances. Ultimately our aim is to promote understanding in society through improving visibility and representation of LGBT people, characters and stories in the Being an interactive event with Q&A sessions, live video streaming and a Twitter wall the costs of the technology are high, meaning we are reaching out for people to support usthrough our Indiegogo campaign which recently launched.

About the team

Our four wonderful hosts for Fusion are freelance sports journalist Jessica Creighton, singer and X Factor finalist Marcus Collins, Pink News political editor Scott Roberts and Aashi Gahlot, who is editor-in-chief and founder of website shorlgbtq.com.

The event is a chat show sofa style format where the hosts will be introducing short films and interviewing the guests, who have diverse media backgrounds such as; film, TV, radio, news, arts, performance. Fusion follows our success earlier this year with the Queer Media Festival held in February, on the day the Sochi Games opened, at MediaCityUK.

At that event we screened 22 short films and had nine in conversations and it was a sell out.

Organised by broadcast journalism student Jamie, after interning for #LoveAlwaysWinsfilm director Mike Buonaiuto, the event sold out the week before.

Jamie is currently interning at Outfest in c, the LGBT film festival and where better to be inspired for new ideas involving film & media than Hollywood? We are so excited for him to bring back some of that Hollywood glamour back to Manchester.

Join in and make Fusion happen

Inspired by TED talks our dream is to stream the event and link up live on the day with people from across the world, so even if you can’t make it to the event you can join in online through Twitter or via the video stream.

Conversations with our media guests

Fusion guests clockwise from top left: Asifa Lahore (UK’s first Muslim drag queen), Eiynah (author of My Chacha is Gay), Colin Campbell-Austin (Head of Talent & People Development at Telegraph Media Group), Rudy Katochi (Multimedia journalist for

Press Association), Bobby Tiwana (live event producer), Mike Buonaiuto (filmmaker), Aziz Rachid (Head of BBC North West), Phyll Opoku-Gyimah (Director & Co-Founder of UK Black Pride).

One thing I have learnt is that we all struggle- we all fail- we all succeed- these things are not as important as having the courage to stand up and try (again!). As long as we keep on trying, nothing is impossible. I feel that people are encouraged
to give up more than they are to keep trying We are all AMAZING!! – Aashi Gahlot, ShorLGBTQ.com

Fusion: One story at a time we are all changing the world.

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