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No, not that film festival in Queens. The other one.
By
Catalina Gonella
Published Jul 1, 2025
Modified Jul 1, 2025
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Mindful Media / Getty Images
By
Catalina Gonella
Published Jul 1, 2025
Modified Jul 1, 2025
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The Queens World Film Festival wants cinephiles to know it is not the Queens Film Festival.
That’s a different, newer organization, with what the Queens World Film Festival had alleged in a lawsuit was a “confusingly similar” name. But organizers of the much-longer-running Queens World Film Festival say they’re patching up their differences (or, similarities, rather) and it won’t stay that way for long.
Still confused? Let us explain.
The Queens World Film Festival is a 15-year-old, multiday event screening films from local and international filmmakers and takes place in November. The Queens Film Festival is also a multiday event, but is only in its second year and exclusively screens films from local filmmakers. Its program starts July 7.
Though they operate in the same industry and borough, two non-profits have no affiliation. But the new festival’s name has caused confusion in the industry, according to Queens World Film Festival founder Katha Cato.
“I've received inquiries about jobs that we're not offering. … A gentleman called and wanted to know about some submission policies and realized that he had the wrong film festival,” she said. “Just yesterday I was interviewing an intern and he was telling me that he and his friends went to the festival last year, and I said, ‘Oh really? When was it?’ and the time that they told me, well, that's not us.”
Cato said she saw the chaos coming when she was first introduced to Mridul Sharma over email at the beginning of last year and welcomed him to the community. In that exchange, Sharma told Cato he was planning on starting a new festival and calling it “Queens Film Festival,” adding that he wanted QWFF to transfer its domains to him, according to the lawsuit, which was filed last week.
“This, of course, was a ridiculous request,” the lawsuit reads.
Cato immediately knew it would cause confusion, and reached out to the organization Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, who connected her to an attorney. The attorney explained to Sharma that the new festival’s name would infringe on QWFF's trademark rights, and asked him to come up with a new name, the lawsuit states. But Sharma didn’t respond and moved forward with the name, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges that the name “Queens Film Festival” was “likely to cause confusion, to cause mistake, and to deceive as to the affiliation, connection, and/or association” of the two festivals. According to the suit, the new festival was fully aware of QWFF’s rights, and went forward with its name “intentionally attempting to confuse prospective sponsors, advertisers, film producers, and the public into doing business.”
Sharma has not returned a request for comment via the email listed on the Queens Film Festival’s site.
Cato said after Sharma wouldn’t budge on the name over the last six months, she decided to move forward with the lawsuit and filed it on June 26.
Just days later, on Tuesday, July 1, the Queens Film Festival announced on its website that this would be its last year with its current name.
“Please be aware that we are not affiliated with Queens World Film Festival, the organization that has conducted film festivals in Queens under that name since 2011,” the website now reads. “After this year’s film festival, we will be changing our name, and we will announce the new name soon.”
Cato said Queens World Film Festival agreed to let Queens Film Festival keep its name, website, and social media handles through this year’s event, so as to not jeopardize the filmmakers participating in the festival. She added Queens World Film Festival never wanted to “stomp out” the new festival, and encouraged the founder to keep it going.
“ I'm a festival director, it's just so hard — I don't want it to be harder for anybody,” she said. “ I'm super glad that he was able to do this and get this done because his festival's in two weeks. … I just hope they have a great, great run and that we all just keep moving forward.”
Cato said the Queens World Film Festival expects to drop the lawsuit later this month after a final settlement is concluded.
Tagged
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queens
Catalina Gonella
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