In Beograd from may 3 -7 Queer Beograd Festival took place celebrating the right to freedom of sexual diversity. The idea for an indoor festival came about because of the impossibility of holding a pride march in Beograd, this indoor festival was seen as an achievable tactic in the face of the violence experienced at the 2001 pride and the cancellation of the 2004 pride due to the threat of violence.

People from Beograd, Novi Sad, Macedonia, Croatia, Slovenia, Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Vienna, and London attended the festival. The aim of the festival was to build positive energy in the queer community, to provide a safe space for the sharing of ideas and culture and through this to combat the pervasive homophobia of Serbian society.

Many events took place over the 6 days of the festival, both inside the BIGZ building which acted as the main venue and in other more public spaces. Self defence trainers from Munich taught a 3 day self defence workshop and each day workshops took place which included theatre, gender and sexuality, safer sex, multi relationships, Roma Women’s issues and S/M culture.

An exhibition of works Self portraits by artist Alenka Spacal from Slovenia, Toilets by Deivan from Beograd, and «Doomsday Graphics & Shaved Women» by Nenad Vukmirović & Andrea Tomašević, Beograd was made in the BIGZ space and an info kiosk-café was set up for the duration of the festival, here people could relax, eat lunch, take tea or coffee, socialise and read materials on queer issues from around the world.

3 evening events took place in the BIGZ building, an exhibition opening and festival launch, a presentation by queer Zagreb, film screening All 5 by Dana Budisavljević, Croatia, and a performance event featuring Act Women from Beograd and Jet Moon from London. All of these events were well attended and attracted different crowds. On Friday night a local club was used to host an all woman band event - featuring Tribade a lesbian band from Paris, Lollobrigida girls from Zagreb and Bitcharke from Beograd. On Saturday a street action-party was held in the main street of Beograd with the theme ‘no more violence in the streets’, a banner was hung in the street, food not bombs was served, music played and flyers were distributed giving information about discrimination, encouraging freedom and tolerance. Everyone was nervous about going to the street but we did it and this was an empowering moment for those present.

We hope that people from both inside and outside of Beograd can benefit from these stories as a demonstration of the power of self organisation and resistance to oppression, to build a greater change and freedom within Beograd.

plans for a bigger queer beograd festival in 2006 are underway.