Vancouver, BC—Out On Screen, the organization that puts on Vancouver's annual Queer Film Festival, is proud to announce the 2007 winners of the yearly Vancity enviro Visa People’s Choice Award for Best Feature and of the Gerry Brunet Memorial Award. U.S. writer/director Jonah Markowitz won the People’s Choice Award for Best Feature for his film Shelter, the story of a young gay surfer's coming of age, which had its Canadian premiere at the festival. Vancity Visa provides the $1500 prize to the audience favourite for best feature film. Trans Neptune, by Matthew Long, which screened as part of the annual The Coast is Queer series, is the winner of the Gerry Brunet Memorial Award. The juried award, worth a total of $1500 ($500 cash and $1000 in production services courtesy of Technicolor) for the best short film or video by a British Columbian director, is given in recognition of Gerry Brunet, a lifelong contributor to arts organizations and an early Board member of Out On Screen. Jury members Billeh Nickerson, Meghna Haldar and Helen Leung, all local artists and educators, chose the film for its "transplanatary imagination and ambition."

This year's festival had more sold-out screenings than in 2006 and while final tallies are not yet in, an increase over last year's attendance is expected for the 11-day event, Vancouver's second largest film festival. The festival opened with the well-received Israeli film The Bubble, and a new initiative, the Queer History Project, saw the launch of The Love That Won't Shut Up, a documentary about gay, lesbian, and trans seniors recounting their experiences of what it was like to be queer in the 50s, 60s and 70s. The sold-out event attracted widespread interest from the public and from the media. Directors author Ivan E. Coyote and musician Veda Hille, entertained a packed house prior to the film, while film interviewee and performer Bill Monroe, in gold sequinned gown and crooning old standards, quipped about what a long way he had come from being a young gay man in Guelph to becoming a star performer playing both queens and the Queen.

Other festival highlights included magical, impromptu performances by unicorns, mustachioed characters, and bathroom burlesque by local performance artists. Guest director John Cameron Mitchell (Shortbus, Hedwig and the Angry Inch), braved an East Coast storm to fly in to do a Masterclass for budding filmmakers. The festival ended with the screening of Vivere, by last year's audience favourite Angelina Maccarone, as well as with a happy mix of filmgoers, filmmakers and performance artists at the Closing Gala party. Out On Screen's Executive Director, Drew Dennis, says this year's festival was a huge success. "The festival has grown rapidly and has become one of the city's pre-eminent summer events. It's something people look forward to, and the number of sold-out screenings and increase in audience size indicates we're giving people what they want in terms of seeing their lives on the big screen. We're proud of our work and are very much looking forward to celebrating our 20th anniversary next year, with an even bigger and better festival next August."