When Q! Film Festival director John Badalu finally decided to come out to his parents, it's fitting that he was inspired to do so by a film. It was 1996 and John -- 25 at the time -- was on holiday in Singapore with his parents. While out shopping with his mother, he simply blurted it out.

The year before, he had shown Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet to his family, hoping its gay-themed storyline would ease his impending confession.

So he said to his mother: "Remember that film last year that you watched? Well, I'm like that."

His mother, in disbelief, had little to say and "was just cool", said John. Her only request was to keep the news quiet from his father, who has a heart problem; John agreed, but only if she would keep mum, too.

"It was never really the right time," said John, now 36 with bleached-blond hair and an easy smile. "The thing is with my family, we were never really close. At dinnertime, even if we sit down together, we never really talk about something personal. So I didn't know how to tell them."

John's father found out shortly after the Singapore trip and he was considered "out" -- of the family, that is. Support from his younger sister and his then boyfriend allowed John to overcome the situation, and slowly his parents came to accept him as their son again.

Fast-forward to 2007. John is now helming the sixth annual Q! Film Festival, the only gay and lesbian film festival in Indonesia. Founded by John and six colleagues in 2002, the festival has flourished despite the dominance of Islam here.

"The audience is always increasing every year," said John. "From the first festival to the second, it was a big leap, actually. Ever since then, it's grown more gradually."

Q! has even gained recognition from the Berlin International Film Festival's Teddy Awards, the official queer award of that festival. John even sat on the Teddy Jury in 2003 and in 2006.

The queer film festival was also, unsurprisingly, inspired by cinema -- but one drawn from a negative reaction.

While working for the Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest) as an operations manager, John became bored with the Hollywood fare being shown and contemplated establishing a film festival with a queer twist. He told the idea to some friends and fellow freelance journalists and the Q! Film Festival was born.

"I'm gay myself, so I thought maybe it was a good time to start something a little more political and to do a gay movement in Indonesia," said John.

Using the connections he had made from working at various cultural institutes around the capital, such as the Goethe Institut and the Italian Institute of Culture, John procured enough films and screening venues to stage a modest five-day festival.

"We started from scratch and we didn't really know how to do it. We also wanted to raise the awareness of the queer community. In Indonesia, that's never talked about."

Born 1971 in Makassar, South Sulawesi, to an ethnic Chinese family, John found himself somewhat of an outcast from the beginning. He faced widespread discrimination in his hometown, and found his transition from a majority Chinese elementary school to a state-run junior high -- which was predominantly attended by pribumi, or native Indonesians -- a difficult feat.

"I fought almost every day with some students here or there," said John. "Every day I went home with one black eye or some scratch somewhere. But that's the way we grew up. We just have to be tough in the end."

That toughness is still evident in John, who speaks almost whimsically of the initial friction the festival experienced in its first two years.

The inaugural festival was a small affair, but still managed to garner protest from a fundamentalist Islamic group.

"We didn't expect there would be any trouble at all," John said of the 20-strong group that blocked one of the screening venues.

"We told them that this is a film festival. It's film, it's culture, it's nothing to do with trying to do something really, really political. It's not a sex party or something like that."

The second year drew no protests, but John's life was threatened by one group that also vowed to burn down the festival venues. But fear was the last thing on John's mind.

"I wasn't scared at all," he said. "I was like OK, if it's time to die, I'll die. At least it will mean something in the future, hopefully."

Telling his Q! colleagues about the threats was a struggle, and when he finally did, several committee members quit. But the visiting guests that year found the peril exciting, and told John he was doing something really meaningful.

Over the last five years, the Q! Film Festival has proven this meaningfulness to a new generation within the queer community.

Queer advocacy group Arus Pelangi was born from a group of individuals who would regularly attend the festival. And the National Commission on Human Rights finally added the queer community to their list of populations in need of rights protection.

"One of the people who work there actually pushed this agenda hard after watching all these films at the festival," said John.

But John readily admits that the festival unintentionally excludes certain groups of people.

"Because the films are only (those) with English subtitles or are only in English, the low-class queer people cannot go and see (the films)," said John. "They wouldn't understand a thing. It's just a shame, but technically it's very expensive to have Indonesian subtitles. We don't have the resources to do that."

As the festival continues, John dreams of having an outdoor public screening, but worries that Indonesia's censorship laws will be too constricting.

In the meantime, he is planning a more organized program for next year -- and films of higher quality.

"I would like to show less and less commercial films, less and less naked men running everywhere, (films) more related to the queer issues," said John. "It will be more quality movies that I will be trying to push."

Q! Film Festival runs through Sept. 2 in Jakarta, with a Bali showing from Sept. 6-8. All screenings are free. For complete schedules and listings, visit www.qfilmfestival.org.