August 5, 2019 (HOUSTON, TX) – FISTING: NEVER TEAR US APART has taken the top prize at the 23rd Annual QFest, Houston's International LGBTQ Film Festival. The weeklong festival has concluded with the suspense filled drama awarded The John Steven Kellett Freedom of Vision Award, the festival’s highest honor.

The 2019 QFest Audience Prize went to Ayumi Nakagawa’s PORTRAITS OF THE RAINBOW, while the Houston Film Critics Society awarded their Best Picture Prize to Tober Heymann’s JONATHAN AGASSI SAVED MY LIFE, which also won the Jury Prize for Best Direction.

Below is the complete list of competition winners. For additional information, please visit www.Q-Fest.com

Winning Films of QFest 2019:

The John Steven Kellett Freedom of Vision Award

FISTING: NEVER TEAR US APART

Q is an aging spy in search of a monster known as The Shadow – a rumored darkness fabricated by the media as a murderer with a grudge against promiscuous women. His wife, M, is taunted by a haunted closet and low television signal range in their mountain top mansion. Alex, their son, is your typical boy at the verge of maturity experimenting both sexually and emotionally. Things head south for the family when The Shadow impregnates M and Q must find a cure in time for Alex’s college graduation at week’s end. As with all family dramas, things will climax with blood-curdling screams.

Grand Jury Prize for Best Picture

KHEJDI

In the remote distant village of Rajasthan, Khejdi, an intersex child, is born to Baidjii, the only Ayurvedic Doctor in the Village. To protect Khejdi, Baijdi builds up a wall around his home and forbids Khejdi from ever leaving their room. After 18 years, a chance to become part of life outside their walls presents itself to Khejdi, but will this prove a blessing or a tragedy.

QFest 2019 Audience Prize PORTRAITS OF THE RAINBOW

Famed Fashion Photographer Leslie Kee, who has lived in Japan for over 25 years, routinely trains his gaze on subjects of taboo and discrimination. As a self-identified bisexual, Mr. Kee became the sole photographer of the “Out In Japan” project, a campaign to raise awareness of the existence of LGBTQ citizens to Japan’s general public and to push back against pervasive prejudice and legal discrimination. Mr. Kee’s passion for the project ultimately leads him on an ambitious journey to photograph 10,000 LGBTQ individuals living throughout Japan.