Greg Louganis, a diver from the United States who won two gold medals in diving in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics will be participating in the festival as a guest of honour   According to sources at the American Embassy, Louganis has expressed his great happiness at being invited to participate in the event and to be able to contribute to the noble cause of empowering sexual and gender minorities in Nepal. Greg Louganis is openly gay. After he tested positive for HIV in 1988, he recounted his story in a best-selling autobiography Breaking the Surface co-written with Eric Marcus. The book spent five weeks at number one on the New York Times Best Seller list. In a 1995 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Louganis spoke publicly for the first time about being gay and HIV-positive. His story was recounted in the 1996 Showtime movie Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story with Mario Lopez playing the lead and Louganis narrating.

Greg also produced a video diary called Looking To the Light, which picked up where Breaking the Surface left off. In the years since his diagnosis was made public Louganis has been an outspoken HIV awareness advocate. He has worked frequently with the Human Rights Campaign to defend the civil liberties of the LGBT community and people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.

There will be a parallel human rights seminar and LGBTI film festival too.

Find out more: http://www.bds.org.np