The 27th Long Beach Q Film Festival begins Thursday, Sept. 10, completely online. Tickets are now available to watch more than 40 new narrative, documentary and short films to be streamed through Sept. 13, in support of The LGBTQ Center of Long Beach.

Festival founder Robert Cano said that canceling the festival was never really considered because “from the get-go we made a commitment to make this happen. We felt our community really needed this, not just the LGBTQ community, but the Long Beach community, you know, to restore some sense of normalcy.”

As part of the Hi-lo’s Live Chat series, we sat down with Cano to discuss not only the festival’s history but the importance of having queer representation during a time when most social spaces for the LGBTQ community are closed because of the pandemic. Part looking back, part looking forward, this is a conversation about one of the region’s most respected film festivals.

Tickets—$10 a film, $50 for an all-access pass—can be purchased at qfilmslongbeach.com. Films will be available to view from 12:01 a.m. on Sept. 10 through 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 13. The festival will award its traditional Jury and Audience prizes to winning films in several categories.