2017 Festival

THE LEGEND OF SING HEY – Sneak Peek

SHORT | 2017 | CANADA | 10 MIN

Director: Becca Redden

9:30PM Princess Twin

This documucial follows Kitchener-based artist-activist Janice Jo Lee, her sister, and her friends from Ontario to the East Coast playing shows, sharing music, and rediscovering what home means by leaving it. Emerging along the journey is the mythical voice of Sing Hey, a prophecy released through musical numbers, living a powerful, alternate life of kicking down oppressors through screaming emotions. As they talk to other artists-activists, explore identity, and travel back home, Sing Hey begins to seep into Janice’s life, as fiction becomes truth, expressing what we always wanted to say but wouldn’t dare. The Legend of Sing Hey is a story that connects family, identity and community with history and ancestral roots through performance, music, and celebration of spirit.

Saturday Church

2017| USA | 81 MIN

Director: Damon Cardasis

Working single mother Amara leaves her two boys at home with domineering Aunt Rose, and Rose has her eyes on the older son, Ulysses. Stealing nylons, wearing his mother’s shoes: Ulysses is just beginning to explore his identity and sexuality. When Rose demands an end to it, the boy escapes to the Village and discovers both supportive friends and the inspiration to become exactly what he is feeling inside. The problem: Rose is waiting back home. Luka Kain delivers a magnetic performance as Ulysses—who in his best moments hears music all around, and yet faces some of the worst circumstances imaginable—in this drama about finding a literal sanctum, so that you can find yourself. It’s a complicated life Ulysses leads, and Damon Cardasis’s musical coming-of-age story is all the better for tackling multiple sides of the young LGBTQ experience, with compassion and heart combined.

 Content Warning: Sex work, implied sexual content, homophobia, transphobia, bullying

Two Soft Things, Two Hard Things

2016| CANADA| 71 MIN | Doc | Dir. Mark Kenneth Woods and Michael Yerxa

As a small group in Nunavut, Canada prepare for a seminal LGBTQ Pride celebration in the Arctic, the film explores how colonization and religion have shamed and erased traditional Inuit beliefs about sexuality and family structure and how, 60 years later, a new generation of Inuit are actively ‘un-shaming’ their past.

Content warning: discussions on colonialism, homophobia, transphobia, religion

Before You Know It

2013 | USA | 110 MIN | Dir. PJ Raval

The subjects of Before You Know It are no ordinary senior citizens. They are go-go booted bar-hoppers, love struck activists, troublemaking baton twirlers, late night Internet cruisers, seasoned renegades and bold adventurers. They are also among the estimated 2.4 million lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans over the age of 55 in the United States, many of whom face heightened levels of discrimination, neglect and exclusion. But Before is not a film about cold statistics and gloomy realities, it’s a film about generational trailblazers who have surmounted prejudice and defied expectation to form communities of strength, renewal and camaraderie—whether these communities be affable senior living facilities, lively activist enclaves or wacky queer bars brimming with glittered trinkets and colorful drag queens.

Dennis is a gentle-hearted widower in his 70s who begins exploring his sexual identity and fondness for dressing in women’s clothing under the name “Dee.” Ty is an impassioned LGBT activist who hears nothing but wedding bells once gay marriage passes in New York. Robert “The Mouth” is a feisty bar owner who presses on when his neighborhood institution comes under threat. Born before the Civil Rights era, these men have witnessed unbelievable change in their lifetimes, from the Stonewall Riots and gay liberation, to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and Queer Nation, to gay marriage and Lady Gaga, and have lived to become part of an unprecedented “out” elder generation. Before focuses on the lives of these three gay seniors, but reminds us that while LGBT elders face a specific set of issues, aging and its challenges are universal. An affirmation of life and human resilience told with a refreshing humor and candor, Before confirms that you are never too old to reshape society.

Content warning: Contains descriptions of violence, homophobia and ageism

The Year We Thought About Love

2014 | USA | 68 MIN | Dir. ELLEN BRODSKY

What happens when a diverse group of LGBTQ youth dares to be “out” on stage to reveal their lives and their loves?

THE YEAR WE THOUGHT ABOUT LOVE goes behind the scenes of one of the oldest queer youth theaters in America, with our camera crew slipping into classrooms, kitchens, subways, and rehearsal rooms with this fearless and endearing troupe. Boston-based True Colors OUT Youth Theater transforms daily struggles into performance for social change. With wit, candor, and attitude, our cast of characters captivates audiences surprised to hear such stories in school settings. Our film introduces a transgender teenager kicked out of her house, a devout Christian challenging his church’s homophobia, and a girl who prefers to wear boys’ clothing even as she models dresses on the runway. When bombs explode outside their building, the troupe becomes even more determined to share their stories of love to help heal their city.

This year is the first year they dare to talk about love. Brave, inspiring, and funny…these are the inspiring LGBT youth that are leading us into the future.

Content warning: contains language and descriptions of death, violence, transphobia and homophobia