Outfest Is Back! LA’s LGBTQ+ Film Festival Returns For HBO Max Screening Event After 2-Year Hiatus

After the organization endured financial woes, a change in leadership and unionizing in 2023, Outfest is back with a new four-day screening event and LGBTQ+ community celebration.

Partnering with HBO Max, OutfestNEXT marks the relaunch of the Los Angeles LGBTQ+ film festival’s programming as the nonprofit rehires key staff members who were placed on leave during previous restructuring, in addition to the election of a new Board of Directors.

Festival organizers are in the final stages of curating the screening event, set for Nov. 6-9, with new programming initiatives to be announced soon.

“Outfest was born of the need for our LGBTQ+ community to have a place to safely gather and to support filmmakers who were telling authentic stories,” said Christopher Racster, interim executive director of Outfest. “Outfest is being reborn at a time when telling our stories has never been more important. We are re-emerging to ensure that our community is not being erased by those working to deny us equal and civil rights. We are proud and grateful to have our decades long partner HBO Max returning as Presenting Sponsor for the event. Now more than ever, our community needs to come together and our voices need to be heard.”

Additionally, the relaunch plans to revive some of the festival’s signature programs, including Outfest Los Angeles, its flagship LGBTQ+ Film Festival, as well as Outfest Fusion, its BIPOC focused film program.

Originally founded in 1982, Outfest’s next phase and current team growth comes with help from Queer Filmmakers United, whose rep Daniel Crooke said the union is “excited by the fresh approach taken by Christopher and the new Board of Directors in bringing our beloved organization back to life. We are greatly encouraged by their commitment to fostering a mutually respectful workplace, as demonstrated by their voluntary recognition of our union. We have been proud to work with them in the fourteen months leading up to this moment, and we look forward to continuing our work together in building a more just, equitable, and sustainable film culture.”

Outfest’s 2025 Board of Directors includes Kelly Balch, Jeffrey R. Epstein, Nick Francescon and Amir Moini. The Board’s new president, Lucas Bailey said, “We are humbled to be standing on the shoulders of those who have spent four decades building Outfest. We are committed to rebuilding in the face of the current headwinds facing the arts, QTBIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities. We are inspired by the knowledge that our community has overcome countless obstacles in the past by standing together.”

Amid the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes and media layoffs of 2023, Outfest’s Board announced in October of that year they “made the difficult decision to scale back our operations for the next several months,” noting that it “proudly supports” its staff’s right to unionize and formally recognizing QFU.

The Board expressed its intentions to “humbly focus on creating a financial model that prioritizes programming that serves our community, a supportive environment for our staff, and ultimately protects the organization.”

Outfest’s return comes at a detrimental time for representation in media as GLAAD’s latest Studio Responsibility Index found that LGBTQ-inclusive films dropped to a three-year low, and the Trump administration continues its efforts to dismantle DEI.