Image+Nation
Flashback

Flashback

PETER HAYS | CANADA | 2024 | 90 MIN | ENGLISH

PETER HAYS | CANADA | 2024 | 90 MIN | ENGLISH

DocumentaryMADE AU CANADA

Synopsis

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.

Trailer

Filmmaker Bio

Peter Hays is an award-winning writer/director/producer of unscripted television series and feature films made for Canadian and American broadcasters and distributors. The former journalist lives in Calgary, Alberta where his company Tangerine Productions Ltd. is focused on telling essential human stories with universal appeal.

Producer

Bradley Warren

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

You might also like

PosterMade au CanadaShort
Made au Canada Icon
Dairy Boy[MADE AU CANADA]15 minutes

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.

PosterMade au CanadaShort
Made au Canada Icon
Jesse[MADE AU CANADA]12 minutes

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

PosterMade au CanadaCompetitionDocumentary
Made au Canada IconCompetition Icon
Bulletproof: A Lesbian's Guide to Surviving the Plot[I+N Connexe]105 minutes

Spoiler alert: chances are if you were watching television in spring 2016, you witnessed the startling peak of the Bury Your Gays trope. LGBTQ+ females from Buffy’s Tara to The 100’s Lexa have gotten the axe and this wry exposé investigates the dismaying trend and ensuing sea change. Bouncing back and forth from Toronto to culture hubs like L.A. and London, Bulletproof unfolds like the plot of a great mystery. There are the victims: queer female characters. The murderers: harried television writers, showrunners, and producers who, for a myriad of reasons that the doc unpacks, have chosen to kill off fan-favourites. And then there are the detectives: a “rainbow network” of journalists, media psychologists, fan community leaders, and many more who dissect the catalysts and impacts of shifting queer depictions. Not to mention the documentarian themself, “gay as hell” TV junkie Regan Latimer on year six of what was supposed to be a one year project, uncovering personal, societal, and scientific revelations alongside their wise-cracking on-screen surrogate, Lindy Zucker. Through clever references and animation, Bulletproof proves that representation has life-or-death stakes and fantasy can be as essential as reality.

PosterMade au CanadaShort
Made au Canada Icon
 یک روز این سر One Day This Kid[MADE AU CANADA]17 minutes

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.

PosterMade au CanadaCompetitionShort
Made au Canada IconCompetition Icon
Hello Stranger[MADE AU CANADA]16 minutes

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

PosterMade au CanadaShort
Made au Canada Icon
AI WW Fight in Florida[MADE AU CANADA]1 minutes

I asked various AI to create images and narratives of black wonder womxn fighting in Florida. These are their responses: White supremacism, sexism, homotransphobia are spreading across the web. Let’s play with it and get back some power.

PosterMade au CanadaShort
Made au Canada Icon
Insta Gay[MADE AU CANADA]12 minutes

A gay millennial reels after breaking-up with a popular influencer.

PosterMade au CanadaShort
Made au Canada Icon
The Boxing Ring[MADE AU CANADA]23 minutes

After deciding to do a Muay Thai competition, a timid, mid-20s Filipino-Canadian woman must train in secret and go against her strict parents, while also falling in love with her coach, who is also a woman.

PosterMade au CanadaShort
Made au Canada Icon
TTT[MADE AU CANADA]4 minutes

After the 100th 'The Thursday Testo,' (TTT), the tri-languistical references such as the Roman and Korean (Hangeul) alphabets and the Japanese syllabic (Katana) alphabet of the word TRANS on a comedy sketch by Kě.

PosterMade au CanadaDocumentaryVIRTUAL EXCLUSIVE
Made au Canada Icon
Y'a une étoile (FREE SCREENING)[I+N x FMC / CMF SERIES]71 minutes

FREE ENTRANCE TO THE CINEMA // FREE SCREENING! conversation with Julien Cadieux at 18h15 FOR FREE ONLINE SCREENINGS, send a request to information@image-nation.org - a code will be sent to you. Thank you for your interest! // Acadian director Julien Cadieux trains his ingenious eye on Samuel LeBlanc, a trans musician in the band Écarlate, as Samuel travels across the Acadian region of the Maritimes, informing youth, paying homage to singer-songwriter Angèle Arsenault, and rubbing elbows with a surfeit of queer talent in this one-of-a-kind musical documentary. Gender dysphoria; rediscovering one’s indigenous culture; the inclusive, non-binary poetry of Chiac: a lot of crucial subjects are handled in exuberant, entertaining ways as Samuel confronts queer Acadians’ heartstopping lows and revels in their joyous highs, bearing witness to the region’s heartening cultural shifts. You will meet everyone from an asexual biromantic teacher to two viral drag superstars. So, come hop aboard a tractor, lobster boat, or hot air balloon. There are stories to hear and musical numbers to move you—mind and body—as the film delivers on the promise that “being unique doesn’t depend on the size of your wallet.” With the mesmerizing exactitude of Wes Anderson and a palette that gives the pastels of Barbie a run for their money, Julien Cadieux offers up a lively fantasy grounded in Acadian culture and history, then and most certainly now. Also in this programme: NOUS PARTIRONS JULIEN CADIEUX | CANADA | 2023 | 8 MIN | FRENCH Gilbert Mhanna is a queer Lebanese artist based in Toronto. His art is baladi, a dance traditionally reserved for cis women. Together, we'll explore the relationship of his Araboqueer body to this Canadian space. How does this country continue to flow through their veins?

PosterMade au CanadaShort
Made au Canada Icon
Dairy Boy[MADE AU CANADA]15 minutes

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.

PosterMade au CanadaShort
Made au Canada Icon
Jesse[MADE AU CANADA]12 minutes

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

PosterMade au CanadaCompetitionDocumentary
Made au Canada IconCompetition Icon
Bulletproof: A Lesbian's Guide to Surviving the Plot[I+N Connexe]105 minutes

Spoiler alert: chances are if you were watching television in spring 2016, you witnessed the startling peak of the Bury Your Gays trope. LGBTQ+ females from Buffy’s Tara to The 100’s Lexa have gotten the axe and this wry exposé investigates the dismaying trend and ensuing sea change. Bouncing back and forth from Toronto to culture hubs like L.A. and London, Bulletproof unfolds like the plot of a great mystery. There are the victims: queer female characters. The murderers: harried television writers, showrunners, and producers who, for a myriad of reasons that the doc unpacks, have chosen to kill off fan-favourites. And then there are the detectives: a “rainbow network” of journalists, media psychologists, fan community leaders, and many more who dissect the catalysts and impacts of shifting queer depictions. Not to mention the documentarian themself, “gay as hell” TV junkie Regan Latimer on year six of what was supposed to be a one year project, uncovering personal, societal, and scientific revelations alongside their wise-cracking on-screen surrogate, Lindy Zucker. Through clever references and animation, Bulletproof proves that representation has life-or-death stakes and fantasy can be as essential as reality.

PosterMade au CanadaShort
Made au Canada Icon
 یک روز این سر One Day This Kid[MADE AU CANADA]17 minutes

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.

PosterMade au CanadaCompetitionShort
Made au Canada IconCompetition Icon
Hello Stranger[MADE AU CANADA]16 minutes

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

PosterMade au CanadaShort
Made au Canada Icon
AI WW Fight in Florida[MADE AU CANADA]1 minutes

I asked various AI to create images and narratives of black wonder womxn fighting in Florida. These are their responses: White supremacism, sexism, homotransphobia are spreading across the web. Let’s play with it and get back some power.

PosterMade au CanadaShort
Made au Canada Icon
Insta Gay[MADE AU CANADA]12 minutes

A gay millennial reels after breaking-up with a popular influencer.

PosterMade au CanadaShort
Made au Canada Icon
The Boxing Ring[MADE AU CANADA]23 minutes

After deciding to do a Muay Thai competition, a timid, mid-20s Filipino-Canadian woman must train in secret and go against her strict parents, while also falling in love with her coach, who is also a woman.

PosterMade au CanadaShort
Made au Canada Icon
TTT[MADE AU CANADA]4 minutes

After the 100th 'The Thursday Testo,' (TTT), the tri-languistical references such as the Roman and Korean (Hangeul) alphabets and the Japanese syllabic (Katana) alphabet of the word TRANS on a comedy sketch by Kě.

PosterMade au CanadaDocumentaryVIRTUAL EXCLUSIVE
Made au Canada Icon
Y'a une étoile (FREE SCREENING)[I+N x FMC / CMF SERIES]71 minutes

FREE ENTRANCE TO THE CINEMA // FREE SCREENING! conversation with Julien Cadieux at 18h15 FOR FREE ONLINE SCREENINGS, send a request to information@image-nation.org - a code will be sent to you. Thank you for your interest! // Acadian director Julien Cadieux trains his ingenious eye on Samuel LeBlanc, a trans musician in the band Écarlate, as Samuel travels across the Acadian region of the Maritimes, informing youth, paying homage to singer-songwriter Angèle Arsenault, and rubbing elbows with a surfeit of queer talent in this one-of-a-kind musical documentary. Gender dysphoria; rediscovering one’s indigenous culture; the inclusive, non-binary poetry of Chiac: a lot of crucial subjects are handled in exuberant, entertaining ways as Samuel confronts queer Acadians’ heartstopping lows and revels in their joyous highs, bearing witness to the region’s heartening cultural shifts. You will meet everyone from an asexual biromantic teacher to two viral drag superstars. So, come hop aboard a tractor, lobster boat, or hot air balloon. There are stories to hear and musical numbers to move you—mind and body—as the film delivers on the promise that “being unique doesn’t depend on the size of your wallet.” With the mesmerizing exactitude of Wes Anderson and a palette that gives the pastels of Barbie a run for their money, Julien Cadieux offers up a lively fantasy grounded in Acadian culture and history, then and most certainly now. Also in this programme: NOUS PARTIRONS JULIEN CADIEUX | CANADA | 2023 | 8 MIN | FRENCH Gilbert Mhanna is a queer Lebanese artist based in Toronto. His art is baladi, a dance traditionally reserved for cis women. Together, we'll explore the relationship of his Araboqueer body to this Canadian space. How does this country continue to flow through their veins?