THREE THOUSAND LESBIANS GO TO YORK

The story of the UK’s biggest and longest-running women’s arts festival

This summer we have been shooting all over the UK – meeting authors, musicians and punters, and interviewing them about this fantastic festival. 

Here are just a few snaps of our adventures.

ABOUT THE FILM

Three Thousand Lesbians Go To York tells the extraordinary true story of how a lesbian bookseller (who also happened to be trans) created the largest gathering of LGBTQ+ women in the UK; and how, from 1998 to 2008, the quietly conservative city of York became the unlikely centre of all things lesbian. 

For one thrilling decade, thousands of women flocked to the York Lesbian Arts Festival each autumn, to meet their favourite authors, buy books, hear top female artists live on stage and dance the night away at the ‘disco of a thousand lesbians.’  Looking through the festival programmes is like taking a tour of lesbian culture in the Noughties: Val McDermid, Sarah Waters, Sandi Toksvig, Sue Perkins, Rhona Cameron, Clare Summerskill, Horse, O’Hooley and Tidow all appeared at YLAF in those fabulous days.

Three Thousand Lesbians Go To York captures this important piece of queer women’s history while it still lives in memory, celebrating the achievement of the founder, Jenny Roberts, and the team who shared her vision. The film uses interviews with the people who were there, contemporary images, video and archive footage, to recreate a festival that is remembered with affection by thousands of lesbian and bi women to this day.

THE TEAM

Writer & Presenter – Jane Traies

Director – Rachel Dax

Producers – Jane Traies, Rachel Dax & Kate O’Dwyer

Jane Traies is a writer, researcher and story-teller who works to uncover the hidden histories of marginalised women. Her best-seller Now You See Me is a collection of older lesbian life stories: her second life-history collection, Free to Be Me, captures the stories of a group of lesbian and bisexual women seeking asylum in the UK. Writing jointly with Jacky Bratton, Jane is also half of the sapphic historical novelist Jay Taverner. Their latest title, Liberty, is the fourth adventure in the ‘Brynsquilver’ series.

The York Lesbian Arts Festival, which is the subject of Three Thousand Lesbians Go To York, holds personal significance for Jane as she was closely associated with it for several years. Originally, she appeared there as a writer, but later joined the organising committee and was for a short time the Festival Events Manager (‘FEM’ for short…).

Jane is always looking for new ways to make hidden histories heard and seen. Three Thousand Lesbians Go To York is her first film.

Photo Credit: Bronac McNeill

Rachel Dax is a writer, director and producer working across a range of media including film, audio-drama and LGBTQ+ fiction.

Rachel has written, produced and directed several short fiction films. Time & Again starring Dame Sian Phillips and Brigit Forsyth, was shown at over 65 film festivals and won 15 awards, and was screened four times on the BBC. Rachel’ first feature length documentary Greer Ralston – Giving It All To Art, exploring the life and work of Scottish artist Greer Ralston, was released in September 2024 and has already been picked up by two festivals.

In 2020, Rachel published In Isolation – A Short Book Of Long Monologues which was written during lockdown. Between 2021 and 2023 she then produced and directed these monologues as audio-drama podcasts working closely with sound editors, composers and actors – including the late, great Ruth Madoc of Hi-De-Hi fame.

Rachel is the author of lesbian love story After The Night and genderqueer medieval tale The Legend Of Pope Joan (Trilogy).

Kate O’Dwyer  has over 20 years’ of experience in accounting and administration for creative agencies and large corporations.  Her current day job is Finance Director for a creative design agency, and she is in the final stages of being signed off as a Certificate Chartered Accountant.  

She started to unleash her passion to make film during various film and production courses, and film festivals.  She was exposed to film sets during her previous role as Financial Controller at the Waterloo Film studios in London, where she managed budgets for the film company that produced TV shows, advertisements, scenes for feature films, and music videos.

She enjoys being around busy films sets, crunching the numbers and working with fellow creatives. Kate’s hobbies are filmmaking, travelling and all things artistic and creative.  After travelling through 40+ states of the USA in her twenties, her goal is to do route 66 before she’s 66!