Phoenix LGBTQ+ film festival canceled due to Trump’s anti-DEI policies

This story was first published by LOOKOUT, an investigative nonprofit news organization covering Arizona’s LGBTQ+ communities.

The Desperado LGBTQ+ Film Festival, an annual event hosted by Paradise Valley Community College, is the latest local casualty of the federal government's rollback of diversity policies.

Organizers announced on the festival’s website and social media accounts that the 17th annual event — usually held in January at the college’s Center for the Performing Arts — has been canceled.

The cancellation comes after President Donald Trump, at the start of his second term, signed a series of executive orders targeting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs. Two of the orders, issued in January, require colleges to disband DEI-related initiatives or risk losing federal funding.

“As a publicly funded institution, we must comply with these orders,” the festival’s statement read.

The Desperado Film Festival is organized by the Desperado Film Club, a student group at the college. Its mission is to showcase quality films focused on LGBTQ+ experiences, according to the group’s website.

The move follows similar changes across the Maricopa County Community College District, which recently disbanded Equality Maricopa and other staff-led DEI efforts. The decision stems from the “recent presidential executive orders impacting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts at public institutions, including our community college district,” according to a district press release.

“Continuing with the festival would put critical federal funding at risk, including student financial aid and grants that support hundreds of employees across the district,” says Dale Heuser, a faculty member at PVCC and co-coordinator of the festival.

An email sent Friday by Chancellor Steven Gonzalez laid out an initiative to remove pronouns, alter bathroom signage, and do away with all staff-led groups related to diversity and equity.

While the festival was not designed to generate significant revenue — it typically brought in less than $10,000 annually — its loss will be felt in other ways, Heuser says.

“We are especially saddened by the impact this decision will have on the community,” he says. “For many years, there was no queer film festival presence in the Phoenix area. Desperado helped fill that void for 16 remarkable years, and we are proud of the space it provided for dialogue, celebration and connection.”

“The festival has long been a space for celebration and visibility for students at Paradise Valley Community College and for the Phoenix LGBTQ+ film and arts family,” says Alan East, the festival’s programmer. “Without events such as ours, storytelling from LGBTQ+ filmmakers will be harder to find. We’re hopeful that the festival will return.”