Landfill

Queerment QuébecShort

Abandoned in the debris of a mine, a dancer is revived by the celestial energy pulsating within him.

Queerment QuébecCompetitionShort

The filmmaker aka Tranie Tronic tells the tale of the incident that inspired their latest album Transgression and brings awareness to the potential dangers of dating men online.

Queerment QuébecCompetitionShort

EXT. DAY - A sunny Sunday morning on a café terrace: Isabelle, an actor whose career is in a rut, meets Johanne, her agent, who might have a new part for her. Tension mounts both at the table and in the surroundings. Will expectations be met?

Queerment QuébecCompetitionShort

Two incarcerated women in a secure Northern Québec forest are subjected to the hard labour of reforestation. They enjoy a little area of freedom they’ve managed to create thanks to an empathetic prison guard.

Queerment QuébecShort

A woman confesses her sins to her priest.

Queerment QuébecShort

Set to classical Québecois music and filmed in a colourful, cinematic style, Doux temps explores the sharp contrast between, on one hand, the somewhat routine daily lives of four characters and, on the other, the lyrical sweep of words and music that evoke the amorous passions of the ‘sweet days’ of youth.

Queerment QuébecShort

Struggling actors Ben and Vanessa have been trapped in the performance of a lifetime: their friendship. But not anymore...

Queerment QuébecShort

Set to classical Québecois music and filmed in a colourful, cinematic style, Doux temps explores the sharp contrast between, on one hand, the somewhat routine daily lives of four characters and, on the other, the lyrical sweep of words and music that evoke the amorous passions of the ‘sweet days’ of youth.

Queerment QuébecShort

A film about human interaction and attachment, The People explores the mark people leave on each other and the space they occupy. The watercolor’s fluidity and transparency are the tools used to communicate the emotional tone of the film.

CompetitionFeatureVIRTUAL EXCLUSIVE

DUTCH • FRENCH ST | Capturing the recklessness of youth and the excitement of newfound sexual liberties in sensuous black-and-white cinematography, Dennis Alink’s Out offers up a vivid and tender tale of being young and gay. Tom (Bas Keizer, in a star-making performance) and Ajani (an effervescent Jefferson Yaw Frempong-Manson) are closeted secondary school sweethearts who yearn for life outside of their small-minded, rural community in the Netherlands. Their solution is Amsterdam, where the queer scene is thriving and they can work at their dreams of becoming filmmakers. Quickly falling into the Dutch capital’s gay nightlife offers the pair some initial thrills: cheeky games of Never Have I Ever, limo rides across the city, eye-opening trips to the bathhouse. But the challenges quickly follow, pushing them to separately question: “Who am I, and where do I fit in?” Recalling such classic monochromatic films about wayward youth as The Last Picture Show and Gus Van Sant’s Mala Noche, Alink and his queer collaborators present a lived-in, piercing portrait that proves coming out isn’t just a pronouncement of one’s sexuality, it’s a simultaneously joyous and heartbreaking journey of self-discovery.

Queerment QuébecCompetitionShort

Two incarcerated women in a secure Northern Québec forest are subjected to the hard labour of reforestation. They enjoy a little area of freedom they’ve managed to create thanks to an empathetic prison guard.

Queerment QuébecShort

One autumn evening, a significant power outage occurs. Leonard is awaiting the arrival of David, his ex-boyfriend. For the duration of a candlelit evening, the former couple reunites.

CompetitionFeatureIN CINEMA

PORTUGUESE • FRENCH ST | Wellington (defiantly nicknamed Baby) trades his detention centre cell for the streets of São Paulo, absorbed into the life of an in-demand “escort” with old school methods. Torn between this erotic father figure, two chosen families, and the mother who left him, Wellington must discern which link is the strongest. Against a backdrop of corrupt cops, vengeful kingpins, and Brazilian ball culture, maybe-18-year-old Wellington (João Pedro Mariano) falls for 42-year-old sex worker cum drug dealer Ronaldo (Ricardo Teodoro), who has a son not much younger than Wellington being raised by lesbian mothers. The two share a charged, teasing bond with yo-yoing power dynamics. Wellington softens Ronaldo, schooling him in voguing’s ebullience and showing him his battle scars, while Ronaldo grounds his protege, giving him boxing lessons while doling out paternal advice and setting strict boundaries. Boundaries that Ronaldo is desperate to maintain and Wellington comes to resent when youthful potential and a biological parent draw him away. Propelled by Marcelo Caetano’s stylish direction, this gritty coming-of-age tale wrestles with themes of love and coercion, considering what’s still possible for a restless heart when a ‘baby’ becomes a man.

CompetitionFeature

Jorge is tousled and handsome, seemingly carefree, shouldering changes with cheerful resignation. But after his sudden death, his young mother and best friend, Carmen, is left grief-stricken, forced to reckon with the veracity of her son’s life, including his two lovers—one female, one male—left wondering why he’s ghosted them. At first, Carmen (Ludwika Paleta) refuses all comforts in the wake of her son’s death, cared for, despite her protests, by her kindly queer brother (Darío Rocas). Then, she goes digging. According to Jorge’s estranged father (Luis Velazquez), Jorge (Nicolás Haza) was depressed shortly before he drowned in the sea. Is this true—if so, why? And is this enough to prove his death was intentional? The search for answers will acquaint Carmen with Jorge’s jilted girlfriend (Adriana Palafox) and lovesick boyfriend (Alan Oliva), and reconcile her with a passion for music that hounds her even when she tries to leave it behind. In this expertly crafted tearjerker, writer-director Sofía Gómez-Córdova uses seamless flashbacks and home videos of happier times to reveal who the characters were. And Ludwika Paleta’s blistering performance-of-a-lifetime shows us who Carmen may be in the Thereafter.

CompetitionFeature

SPANISH • FRENCH ST | Argentinian filmmaker Matías is an intense perfectionist struggling to shape his autobiographical film as the past wriggles from his grip. Is Alexander—a dashing fabulist from Sweden he met in Italy as a boy—the lost love of his life? Or just a lovely, bittersweet dream? At the United World College of the Adriatic, with its diverse, exuberant student body, young Matías (Santiago Madrussan) finds a freedom he never knew in Argentina. There, he is befriended by Alexander (Oscar Morgan), whose rousing stories and bedroom eyes make the world more magical, and whose family’s vast holiday home becomes a memory palace for all that was left unsaid. In his 40s, Matías (co-writer/director Juan Pablo Di Pace) looks back at this time and, with a festival deadline looming, tries to fathom the sizzling closeness and coded interactions. A key piece of evidence lying dormant for when he least expects it. With its meta intrigues and captivating sweep, Duino is an elegiac masterwork crackling with swoon-worthy chemistry. A film that asks: how far are we willing to go for a proper conclusion, and what, in the end, remains voices in the wind?

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.