Breaking Silence

Short

Stud Country, the largest queer country western line dancing event in America, was created to preserve Los Angeles' little known 50+ year queer line dancing tradition. Despite its success and fiercely committed community, the event is set to lose its venue due to gentrification.

Short

For the last quarter century, Houston native Arden Eversmeyer journeyed across the country to record hundreds of oral "herstories" with a mostly invisible population that is rapidly disappearing. Old Lesbians honors Arden's legacy by animating the resilient, joyful voices she preserved in the Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project, from first crush to first love, from the closet to coming out, and finally from loss to connection.

Short

At nightfall, the boxers of the La Frapppppe collective are training in a park in Marseille. Bodies are set into motion and start shaping a community of gestures, sensations, and emotions.

Short

There hasn't been a lesbian bar in San Francisco for almost a decade. Driven by nostalgia for a time when queer women had spaces, Malia Spanyol, a self-identified dyke, sets out to build one for the next generation of women and femmes.

Made au CanadaQueerment QuébecCompetitionShort

A short queer history of violent police raids on queer bars between the 70s and 2000s, and the rise of LGBTQ+ communities fighting back. Tribute to Joe Rose.

Made au CanadaShort

A middle aged trans man transitions at 44 and observes his changes over a year and nine months, with a looming ongoing news cycle of anti-trans legislation.

Made au CanadaCompetitionShort

Between loads of laundry at the corner laundromat, Cooper shares the tumultuous story of her gender reassignment journey.

Made au CanadaCompetitionShort

Between loads of laundry at the corner laundromat, Cooper shares the tumultuous story of her gender reassignment journey.

Short

Alex is in the throes of his transition when his best friend abandons a joint venture to assert their burgeoning identities he’s forced to confront his anxieties before entering the unknown alone.

Short

Skin is a poetic exploration of identity and self-discovery, using visual symbolism to depict a woman's transformation into a man. With the help of her inner manifestation, the iceman, she sheds her old skin and embraces her true identity.

Made au CanadaFeature

Torontonian Z, a transmasculine musical theatre performer, has NYC aspirations. The testosterone he’s on has other plans. Facing unpredictable losses and the foreign feeling of his changing body, Z forges connections that reveal how, sometimes, our favourite places are those we have yet to find. Meeting at now-defunct The Beaver, Z (co-writer/producer Breton Lalama) and Danielle (Khadijah Roberts-Abdullah) are smitten. Danielle supports him as he aims for stardom, but falls short: forced to become a barback bartender at Toronto mainstay Squirly’s after a disappointing audition. There, he’s taken under the wing of his cute, charismatic boss, Santi (Xavier Lopez), who knows a lot more about what he’s going through than Z realizes. Although Z can no longer hit Éponine’s notes in Les Misérables, with the help of his vocal coach (Ali Garrison) and a “dream world” goal, he reaches for a more compatible voice. And as we watch Z retrain, we witness actor Breton Lalama do the same in real time, both coming to terms with who they are becoming. Helmed by non-binary filmmaker J Stevens, this is incisive, richly detailed cinema afforded the flow of a life lived authentically.

Short

I learn to speak French and in this way to draw my surroundings. In Paris in an artist's studio, I meet Linda Demorrir, a living model. Like me, she is transgender and an immigrant. When she speaks, moves, sees the world, I am caught up. By doing her sketch, it's me too that I learn to draw in this new country.

Made au CanadaShort

A young trans man returns to his family’s farm in rural southern Ontario following his grandfather’s death, and must navigate the discomforts of familial rural life with his father.

Made au CanadaShort

One day this kid will feel something stir in his heart and throat and mouth. One day this kid will reach a point where he senses a division that isn’t mathematical. One day this kid will talk.

Made au CanadaDocumentaryVIRTUAL EXCLUSIVE

The rediscovery of a neon sign transports us back to when disco was queen and Edmonton’s Flashback club became “the Studio 54 of the Prairies.” Through years of violent raids and the encroachment of AIDS like wildfire, the club and its members nourished an open-hearted, fashion-forward oasis. Created and narrated by Montreal teacher and writer Matthew Hays, Flashback is an insider’s take on how a nightlife “melting pot” defied expectations of “the most Bible Belt-y place in Canada” and rose to international fame. Told he wasn’t gay enough to enter Club 70, Albertan John Reid endeavoured to create his own welcoming space: equal parts state-of-the-art discotheque, record store, and community hub. There, queer youth blossomed and Gretzky and Sarah McLachlan partied. Twirl to the soaring vocals of D’orjay and hip bump with those who were there through clouds of perfume and poppers, while getting a fascinating primer on how the club’s designers calibrated disco music for a custom-built dancefloor. Even when Flashback eventually lost its blissed-out exuberance during the AIDS epidemic, it gave much in return: a relief in a maelstrom and a social conscience for the fights to come.