The Toronto Inside Out LGBT Film Festival, which starts May 23, is evolving as both a creative showcase of the LGBT community and a platform for discussion.

So it makes sense that this year’s festival will include an international spotlight program on LGBT rights, featuring both documentary and narrative films.

Programming director Andrew Murphy says that while the festival will typically feature a program focusing on a particular country or part of the world, several of this year’s films trended more towards exploring LGBT rights globally.

The program features films like Shaun Kadlec and Deb Tullmann’s documentary Born this Way, which explores the struggle for gay rights in Cameroon; Debalina Majumder’s doc …And the Unclaimed, focusing on a diverse group of queer women in India facing societal non-acceptance; and Roger Ross Williams’ God Loves Uganda, an exploration of the conservative American evangelical movement in Uganda.

The rest of the programming lineup is a cross-section with everything from films on extreme activism to lighter, funny fare, says Murphy.

There’s also the Local Heroes program, genre films and multiple shorts programs, including a selection of horror-thriller genre shorts, which Murphy says the festival is doing for the first time with queer content.

The festival opens with a gala screening of Malgoska Szumowska’s In the Name Of, a Teddy Award winner which world premiered in competition in Berlin.

“This film takes a really respectful take on a priest who’s struggling with his sexuality, who’s been posted at a young man’s rehabilitation centre,” Murphy explains. “It’s quite timely in the sense of looking at a year of having a new Pope, and the Catholic church going through criticism and change,” he adds.

Murphy says the festival again this year offers content packaged appropriately for and accessible to a younger audience. That includes a selection of films rated 14+, like Jawbreaker director Darren Stein’s G.B.F. and a student matinee screening of Geography Club, based on Brett Hartinger’s book series.

It is also hosting an artist talk with professor and film critic B. Ruby Rich, credited with coining the phrase “New Queer Cinema,” to mark the publication of Rich’s new book.

The Toronto Inside Out LGBT Film Festival kicks off May 23 and runs through to June 2, 2013.