Pride International Film Festival (PIFF) is an international LGBT film festival which advocates HIV and AIDS awareness and education through films and videos. The first festival, originally planned for 2003, took place on August 21, 2004 in Manila, Philippines. Organized by founder Severino Planas, it was established to help in its worldwide endeavor of fighting HIV/AIDS and promoting prevention and control.
"The fight is our fight," these were the words of Fernando Josef, vice president and artistic director of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), at the opening of the 2004 Pride International Film Festival (PIFF) at the CCP Dream Theater (Tanghalang Manuel Conde) in Manila.
Josef emphasized the institution's support "to uplift and empower the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender in our society, to enlighten others about the issues and concerns affecting this often marginalized, if not discriminated against sector."
The festival presented its "Judy" Award (Most Influential Person in the World) to Madonna and the "Lifetime Achievement and Distinction" Award to Sir Ian McKellen. Both awards were presented in-absentia.
Famous quotes containing the words pride, film and/or festival:
“Come then to prayers
And kneel upon the stone,
For we have tried
All courages on these despairs,
And are required lastly to give up pride,
And the last difficult pride in being humble.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)
“The surest guide to the correctness of the path that women take is joy in the struggle. Revolution is the festival of the oppressed.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)