A year ago, The L Word producer Ilene Chaiken announced that she was launching a new project to follow on from the series that ended almost ten years ago. With six seasons and 70 episodes, The L Word (USA, Showtime 2004-2009, Creators Ilene Chaiken, Kathy Greenberg, Michele Abbott) is a pop culture format, the first to place lesbian protagonists at the centre of its story. Over a period of five years, Chaiken accompanied a group of Los Angeles friends in their everyday life, focusing on issues such as relationships and identities, sex, lesbian parenthood, lesbian-feminist history, racism, transphobia and breast cancer.
The series begins with the characters being introduced to each other by a hetero couple who move into the neighbourhood of Bette Porter and Tina Kennard. Jenny Schecter, the new girl in the area, soon falls in love with Marina Ferrer and becomes part of her inner circle. In the first 13 episodes, the narrative revolves mainly around Jenny’s coming out, but also around Bette and Tina’s desire to have children and Dana Fairbanks’ tennis career, for which she is required to pass as straight.

The Festival invites old and new fans to see the legendary series all over again: What was The L Word? We’ll be showing the first episodes of the series for almost a whole day, and discussing them with editor-in-chief of L-MAG Manuela Kay, who knows all there is to know about The L Word. What importance did the series have for lesbian / queer representations, and why would a relaunch be interesting? The idea that the series would trigger a whole host of other lesbian series has only turned out to be partly the case.