The Queer Lion (Italian: Leone Queer) is an annual independent prize awarded at the Venice Film Festival, since 2007, to the Best Queer Feature Film. A jury composed of journalists, filmmaker, and artists is usually formed before the festival to assign the winner.
All the movies containing LGBTQ themes presented in any of the sections of the festival (Main Competition, Out of Competition, Orizzonti, Venice Spotlight, Giornate degli Autori, and Settimana Internazionale della Critica) are eligible for the prize.
The idea of the Queer Lion comes from a 2003 interview, made by president of CinemArte association Daniel N. Casagrande for monthly magazine Venezia News, to then-Director of the Venice Film Festival Moritz de Hadeln. During the interview, Casagrande asked de Hadeln if the Venice Film Festival would have welcomed an award meant to specifically honor gay-themed movies, the same way Berlin International Film Festival had done 20 years earlier (with Teddy Award). Although the answer was a positive one, the changing of the Festival’s director the following year caused a delay in the development of the project, which was greenlighted by the new director Marco Müller, who declared his will to back and sustain the creation of such a new collateral award.
The prize first winner was American filmmaker Edward Radtke for the drama film The Speed of Life (2007) at the 64th edition.
