Festival 2023
Retro Night
6:30 PM
Art Show Opening
7:00 PM
Blue Jean
(Lesbian), England
1988. In a climate of rampant homophobia, PE teacher Jean is forced to live a double life. A respected member of staff during the week; on the weekend she slips into Newcastle’s gay scene. When a new student threatens to expose her, Jean is caught in a dilemma to protect her job and her integrity.
Venice Film Festival
2022 | 2nd place: BNL People's Choice Award
2022 | Special Mention: Authors Under 40 Award
2022 | Winner: People’s Choice Award
International Film Festival Rotterdam - 2023
BFI London Film Festival - 2022
BAFTA Awards
2023 | 2 nominations including: Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director, or Producer
9:00 PM
Before I Change My Mind
(non binary), Canadian
1987: While the other students wonder if new kid Robin is a boy or a girl, Robin forges a complicated bond with the school bully, making increasingly dangerous choices to fit in.
Boccalino d’Oro Award for Best Acting Performance: Vaughan Murrae as Robin – 2022 – Locarno Film Festival – Locarno, Switzerland
Best Performance in a Female Role in a Feature Film: Lacey Oake as Izzy – 2022 – Iris Prize LGBTQ+ Film Festival – Cardiff, Wales
Grand Prix, Mention Spéciale du Jury – 2022 – Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC) – Montréal, Québec
Student Choice Award – 2022 – Philadelphia Film Festival – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Best Scripted Feature, Best Screenwriter, Best Cinematographer – 2022 – Alberta Film and Television Awards
Audience Award for Best Feature Film – 2022 – Rainbow Visions Film Festival – Edmonton, Alberta
Best Musical Universe – 2023 – Canadian Film Festival Dieppe, Youth Jury – Dieppe, France
At Sundance 2020, the script to Before I Change My Mind was named to The GLAAD List: a curated list of the ten most promising LGBTQ+inclusive screenplays in Hollywood
Tuesday, September 26
Wednesday, September 27
Soirée Cinéma
En collaboration avec le Collectif LGBTQ* du Manitoba
7:00 PM
Édouard Louis, ou la transformation/ The Many Lives Of Edouard Louis
(gay), France
The metamorphosis of a young boy from a sub-proletarian background in Picardy into a star of French cultural life. Édouard Louis, who in a few years has become the spokesman writer of a generation, encourages each of us to make permanent transformation a new way of life.
Cinéma du Réel - 2022
Thursday, September 28
9:00 PM
Arrêtes avec tes mensonges/ Lie With Me
(gay), France
Upon agreeing to be the brand ambassador for a famous cognac celebrating their bicentennial, novelist Stéphane Belcourt returns to his hometown for the first time in many years. Once there, he meets his first love's son, Lucas. Memories come rushing back to him: irrepressible attraction, bodies becoming one in the heat of desire, a passion that can never be revealed... His first love's name was Thomas. They were 17.
Date Night
7:00 PM
Silver Haze
(Lesbian), British-Dutch
23-year-old Franky is a nurse who lives with her large family in an East London borough. Obsessed with a thirst for revenge and a need to assign guilt for a traumatic event that happened 15 years before, she is unable to build any meaningful relationship until she falls in love with one of her patients – Florence. They escape to the coast where Florence lives with her more open-minded patchwork family. There, Franky finds the emotional shelter to deal with the grudges of the past.
Berlinale Panorama 2023 – Teddy Award for Vicky Knight
Crossing Europe Film Festival – Panorama
9:00 PM
Eismayer
(Gay), Germany
Sergeant Major Eismayer is known and feared as the toughest training officer in the Austrian Armed Forces, ruthless with recruits and unwavering in his discipline, order and macho toughness. But when he starts to fall in love with Falak, a new recruit who unashamedly embraces his homosexuality, Eismayer’s closeted existence is shaken to the core. To a man like Eismayer, loving another man cannot be reconciled with the understanding of what a model soldier should be. Will he choose to protect his badass tough guy image over all else, or can he follow his heart and his true desire? Inspired by a true story.
VENICE INT. FILM CRITCS’ WEEK 2022
IWOLDERFULL Grand Prize
Silver Ship for the best One True Pairing assigned to a couple of characters Nominated for Queer Lion
PRAGUE MEZIPATRA QUEER FILM FEST 2022
Mezipatra Queer Film Festival Audience Award
LES ARCS FILM FESTIVAL 2022 - Audience Award-
Prix des Cinglés du cinéma
Film Critic’s Award – Best Fiction Feature
FILMFESTIVAL MAX OPHÜLS PREIS 2023 - Audience Award Fiction
VENICE INT. FILM CRITICS’ WEEK 2022
ZURICH FILM FESTIVAL 2022
REYKJAVIK INT. FILM FESTIVAL 2022
VIENNALE 2022
VENEZIA A NAPOLI 2022
THESSALONIKI INT. FILM FESTIVAL 2022
PRAGUE MEZIPATRA QUEER FILM FEST 2022
LES ARCS FILM FESTIVAL 2022
TIBLISI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2022
MERLINKA FILM FESTIVAL 2022
PALM SPRINGS INT. FILM FESTIVAL 202
FILMFESTIVAL MAX OPHÜLS PREIS 2023
GÖTEBORG FILM FESTIVAL 2023
Friday, September 29
11:00 PM
Queendom
Gena, a queer artist from a small town in Russia, dresses in otherworldly costumes made from junk and tape, and protests the government on the streets of Moscow. Born and raised on the harsh streets of Magadan, a frigid outpost of the Soviet gulag, Gena is only 21. She stages radical performances in public that become a new form of art and activism. By doing that, she wants to change people’s perception of beauty and queerness and bring attention to the harassment of the LGBTQ+ community. The performances—often dark, strange, evocative, and queer at their core — are a manifestation of Gena’s subconscious. But they come at a price.
Truth and Reconciliation Day
7:00 PM
Rosie
(Indigenous), Canada,
Rosie is set in Montreal in 1984 and told from the perspective of young, orphaned Indigenous girl Rosie (Keris Hope Hill), who ends up having to live with her Francophone aunt Frédèrique “Fred” (Mélanie Bray). Fred isn’t really in any position to take care of a child, regularly on the verge of being evicted from her apartment and jobless, making art from items thrown in the trash. Fred, with the support of her two who, refuse to confined by gender, friends Flo (Constant Bernard) and Mo (Alex Trahan), navigate this new responsibility, while Rosie manages being thrusted into this new community.
Saturday, September 30
9:00 PM
The Empress of Vancouver
(Drag), Canada
The Empress of Vancouver is a cinematic and intimate collision of drag, queer history, and performance art, a musical and genre-bending irreverent documentary that follows trans icon Oliv Howe as she prepares for the 40th anniversary of her coronation.
Q&A
with Dave Shortt (Director) and the drag queen « Oliv »