Founded in 1977, Frameline is a San Francisco-based nonprofit media arts organization dedicated to the development, exhibition, distribution, and preservation of LGBTQ+ cinema and independent queer media.

Frameline’s mission is to change the world through the power of queer cinema. As a media arts nonprofit, Frameline’s programs do just that by connecting filmmakers and audiences in the Bay Area and around the world through the funding, distribution, restoration, and amplification of queer films.

Frameline, the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival, is the oldest queer film festival in the world. Its inaugural event, dubbed The Gay Film Festival of Super-8 Films, was organized in 1976 and held in 1977 at the Gay Community Center in San Francisco. Featuring largely experimental works, the Festival projected its films on a bedsheet pinned to a board.

By 1982, Festival organizers incorporated under the name Frameline. Led by co-founder Michael Lumpkin, the newly minted Frameline: San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival became a world-class, professional film festival. Over the years, the Festival’s name has continued to change — in 2005, it became the ​​San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, before adding a “Q” to the end of the acronym 10 years later. However, Frameline’s commitment to showcasing and celebrating films by and about LGBTQ people has remained steadfast.

Although Frameline is most well-known for producing the annual San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival, the organization prides itself on supporting the full life cycle of film, from artist development to exhibition and distribution to restoration.

Since 1990, more than 190 films and videos have been completed with assistance from the Frameline Completion Fund. Grants are awarded annually and provide much-needed support to filmmakers for their final editing and lab work. Once completed, these films often go on to receive international exposure. Submissions include documentary, educational, narrative, animation, and experimental projects about LGBTQ+ people and the issues that matter to us.

Today, the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival is the longest-running, largest, and most widely recognized LGBTQ+ film exhibition event in the world. As a community event with an annual attendance of 60,000+, the Festival is the most prominent and well-attended LGBTQ+ arts program in the Bay Area.

In addition to producing the Festival every June, Frameline also presents year-round exhibitions, like members-only sneak previews and events, as well as special screenings featuring directors, actors, and other queer media icons.

Established in 1981, Frameline Distribution is the only nonprofit distributor that solely caters to LGBTQ+ film. Frameline’s collection has over 300 award-winning films that we distribute globally to universities, public libraries, film festivals, and community organizations.

Frameline Restorations ensures that queer films can be preserved and enjoyed by audiences for years to come. Film preservation is more than just physical restoration, it is also the process of cultural preservation, of valuing LGBTQ+ history and recognizing the artistic contributions of queer filmmakers to the history of cinema.

Thanks to our partners at Comcast, a Major Sponsor of the Festival, you can get a taste of what Frameline is all about by taking a closer look at Frameline48 and nearly 50 years of empowering queer media.