Breaking Silence

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 CanadaCompetitionFeature

In the vein of the Tony award-winning musical Stereophonic, this must-see drama is a Behind the Music-style glimpse of a 2000s Toronto indie band with Fleetwood Mac-like flare ups. With a trans frontman and queer members, The New Normals break boundaries while breaking one another’s hearts. Building off the source material, the novel Heidegger Stairwell by Kayt Burgess, Karen Knox maintains balletic control of multiple perspectives and aesthetics, following how each of the five core members handles firsts: first music video, first phone sex job, first love triangle. Music saves this close-knit crew from quarrels when it’s not causing them, but it’s the in-fighting, the “threads of connection and tension” that keep their audience hungering for more. Will the trans frontman (Lane Webber) stay with his queer girlfriend and songwriting partner (June Laporte) or find a different tune with Lugh (Daniel Gravelle)? Will the band survive or live on only in tribute? These concerns converge in a film charged with envy, creative friendship, and reckless love, and chock-full of pedigreed talent, including co-writing credits from award-winning Canadian writer, Zoe Whittall and festival alumni, Pat Mills as well as original songs from Stars’ Torquil Campbell.

Made au CanadaShort

A journey into Aly’s world and his personal growth through the eyes of his new furry, Eden. Aly opens up about his next character, Lusia, who will resemble him in every way.

Made au CanadaFeatureVIRTUAL EXCLUSIVE

Six longtime friends—and one enticing “nymph”—trek to Nova Scotia’s scenic eastern shore to attend a Good Riddance party in celebration of Darcy’s divorce. There, amongst long pours of wine, tangled histories collide in uproarious ways in this wistful dark comedy. Darcy (Lesley Smith) is finally free of matrimony. But that puts her in the sights of jittery heartthrob Dax (Hilary Adams), who has a habit of using sex and her music career as a balm. Her other friends are there for guidance, but they too have some major distractions: “boozebag” Lucy (Jessica Marie Brown) is reeling from a breakup, Lauren (Nicole Steeves) is insecure about the wandering eye of Phoebe (Faly Mevamanana), and the two Julies (Stephanie Clarke, Kat McCormack) are glowingly pregnant but stagnant in the boudoir. Perennial lake activities—hiking, swimming, taking too much Molly—bring them together, while the weight of shared baggage threatens to sink their proverbial canoe. Writer-director Tara Thorne infuses Lakeview with the bite of her audacious revenge thriller Compulsus (I+N35, 2022), adding rat-a-tat-tat humour as she ping-pongs deftly between one crisis to another, charting the zippy chemistry and pliancy of true friendship.

Made au CanadaCompetitionShort

Robin is a young woman who lives alone above a gas station in North Bay. Every night she watches truckers fill their tanks up and munch on pepperettes. Robin has a secret. Robin is a porn addict. Robin can’t feel anything anymore.

Made au CanadaDocumentary

LGBTQ+ activist Staceyann Chin easily identifies as a mother, poet, writer, dissenter, and truth speaker—it is the label of “daughter” that causes her the most pause. Forced to become a sleuth, she attempts to pierce the veil of secrecy around her mother’s life and come to terms with her absence. After decades pursuing “the career of lesbianism,” Chin is now hot on the trail of her mother Hazel and a more anchored sense of self. Chin travels from Brooklyn to Montreal, where Hazel lived after abandoning Chin in search of a better life, then onwards to far-flung destinations: Germany, Jamaica. Chin talks to neighbours and loved ones, piecing together the puzzle as she goes. With every clue, she is forced to confront past traumas and test the limits of forgiveness, all while caring for her daughter, with whom she famously stages “Living Room Protests” on YouTube. Tapping into the ferocity of Chin’s slam poetry and using digital collage to convey Hazel’s floral allure, director Laurie Tonwshend paints a dual portrait of motherhood. She also practices Chin’s hard-won brand of radical kindness and compassion, finding the grace in failure.

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 CanadaShort

Infamous outlaws The Lily and The Scorpion are on the run after a bank job gone wrong, but as day turns into night, the partners’ trust in each other begins to fray.

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From the tormented little mermaid to the fulfilled woman she is today, Gigi tells us about her gender transition with humor and sensitivity.

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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.

Made au CanadaShort

A male teenager planning to come out to his father imagines different outcomes while portraying them in different cinematographic genres in his mind.