Peter Knegt has dedicated his career to creating media that showcases the diversity of LGBTQ+ voices and culture.
The award-winning CBC producer and journalist spearheaded the creation of the Canadian Screen Award-winning CBC series Canada’s a Drag and Superqueeroes. His weekly CBC Arts column Queeries won a Digital Publishing Award for best column in Canada and, in 2022, Knegt began hosting the CBC Gem interview series Here & Queer, which celebrates the work of LGBTQ artists.
The writer, filmmaker and arts curator began his storied career as a film journalist, writing for Variety, Salon, Xtra, Film Quarterly and, most notably, Indiewire, where he was an editor from 2006 to 2015. Along the way, Knegt has also written, directed and acted in short films that have screened at festivals around the world.
Proudest moment
“I spent most of my 20s working in the U.S. Returning to Canada to work for the CBC felt like an opportunity to reinvent what I was doing, in terms of queering the public broadcaster and bringing diverse LGBTQ+ content. That was a really big milestone for me.”
Career challenge
“Deciding whether to live in the U.S. or Canada because the media landscape here is not as vast and full of opportunity as it is there.”
The Concordia factor
“I’m most grateful for the social element — the idea of community, of building relationships that felt meaningful and not competitive, like a chosen family.”
Passion project
“I started the monthly screening series Queer Cinema Club at Toronto’s Paradise Theatre thinking that after the pandemic there would be a desire to watch old queer movies in a cinema. I hoped we would break even but we sell out every month, and it is very fulfilling to see our event building community.”
Motivator
“I always feel like there’s something more I can be doing, something bigger. Therapists have told me that is not a healthy way to be but it is the way I am. I don’t really know any way around it, so I use it as a driving force for my career.”