Biography

Peter Knegt is a writer, journalist and filmmaker.

He began his career as a film journalist, writing for Variety, Salon, Film Quarterly and, most notably, Indiewire, where he was a writer and editor from 2006 to 2015.

In 2011, Knegt co-founded Picton Picturefest, a film festival and "cinephile retreat" that focuses on the idea of film as a method of both community building and youth education. The festival - inspired by Tilda Swinton's A Pilgrimage - received considerable attention, with The Toronto Star calling it "the next stop on Canada's film festival circuit." Swinton herself programmed the opening night film.

His first book, a historical account of Canadian LGBTQ communities, was released in September, 2011 through Fernwood Publishing and continues to be taught at universities across Canada. It was received well both critically and commercial, which resulted with Knegt on the cover of Xtra! - Canada's most widely distributed LGBTQ magazine - in a story heralding Knegt as "Canada's new gay voice."

Knegt made his foray into film in 2012, co-starring in Travis Mathews' sexually explicit "I Want Your Love," an experience that Knegt chronicled in a popular essay for Salon.com, "My Gay Art Porn Debut." He followed that by writing and directing a series of short films that have screened at dozens of film festivals around the world, "Good Morning" (2014), "Are You There Joy? It's Me, Jennifer" (2016), "Plus One" (2017) and "A Bed Day" (2017).

In 2016, he began working for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a writer, producer and digital correspondent for CBC Arts, which included spearheading the creation of the series "The Filmmakers" (2017), "Canada's a Drag" (2018), "Superqueeroes" (2019) and "Here & Queer" (2022).

In 2019, his weekly CBC Arts written column "Queeries" won a Digital Publishing Award for best column in Canada. In 2020 and 2021, he won four Canadian Screen Awards, two for his work producing "Canada's a Drag" and one each for "Superqueeroes" and "The 2010s: The Decade Canadian Artists Stopped Saying Sorry."

In 2022, he launched the monthly screening series Queer Cinema Club at Toronto's Paradise Theatre, and wrote and acted in the short film "Say Uncle."
- IMDb mini biography by: CBC