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SPANISH • ENGLISH ST | In this stellar coming-of-bisexuality tale, childhood acquaintances—gay Pedro and questioning Maxi— meet again as young men in Buenos Aires, pretending to be lovers in an increasingly lustful subterfuge. Assumptions upended about how this dynamic will progress: who desires who more and whose guardrails will go up first. As Maxi (Lautaro Bettoni) teases, his derrière resembles an “albino penguin”—everyone stares. Though Pedro (Javier Orán) undoubtedly wants to, he calls Maxi out on his not-so-veiled come-ons. What does Maxi really want? To move fast and break things? Or is he the romantic he insists he is, tired of being used for “space flight(s)”? As these two formidable planets enter one another’s gravity, they may or may not be falling for one another. Opposing prospects that neither seems prepared to handle. The Astronaut Lovers has the hallmarks of Marco Berger’s homoerotic Horseplay (I+N35, 2022): frank discussions, tested preferences, and lots of skin. But here, the ever-present threat of violence is replaced by the possibility of fulfillment, a mature examination of sexuality occurring between the lines of flirty, immature games. Berger’s film is a blast of horniness and astronomical romance.

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Émilie lives in a world of surveillance: her camgirl work; the camera phone lingering on a crush from afar; the headset affording her a drone’s perspective. The same drone that stalks each move she makes, offering inspiration, noting rivals. An unsolicited companion conspiring with or against her. A financially strapped transplant now living in the Paris suburbs, Émilie (ballerina Marion Barbeau) is thrust into a high-powered world when she is chosen for a renovation workshop with a prestigious architect (Cédric Kahn). Her classmates come mostly from “filthy rich” backgrounds, like cocky Olivier (Stefan Crepon), who wants Émilie as his conquest. But Émilie has shy eyes only for self-sufficient Mina (Eugénie Derouand), whose music builds like a “helicoid.” All along, a drone—unlike any known model—is watching her. Waiting for her next move and paying handily for the privilege. Taking the “killer’s point of view” made famous by films like Psycho and Friday the 13th to new heights, visionary director Simon Bouisson’s kinetic debut feature is a morality puzzle wrapped in a cutting-edge, goosebump-raising tech thriller. Getting us to consider: how complicit are we—as individuals, as a society—in our own undoing?

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During an evening of conversation and consternation, two old flames meet again in Brooklyn, 40 years after their love affair in the Soviet Union. Within the closed walls of an NYC apartment, The Writer addresses issues of intimacy, politics and existentialism rarely dealt with in LGBTQ+ cinema. Forty years after serving in the Soviet army and living together for a few years in Lithuania, Kostas and Dima meet again in Brooklyn. The former is a queer writer who has been living in the United States for a long time, and the latter, who has remained in Vilnius and divorced from his wife after 14 years of marriage, sees his former lover again after reading her latest book, which depicts their pre-Glasnost affair. Lithuanian filmmaker and LGBTQ+ activist Romas Zabarauskas is, at 34, on his fifth feature film, the second in their trilogy after The Lawyer (I+N33, 2020). More European than American, The Writer is a thoughtful, lingering film about two men who gradually let their guard down through conversation. With polished images and intimate camera work, the filmmaker explores themes—intimate, political, existential—that are rarely covered in queer cinema. And, by choosing actors who are the same age and physicality as their characters, the filmmaker makes a militant gesture in our youth obsessed culture to offer up a nuanced exploration of questions answered and long buried desires revealed.

Feature

This searching, starry-eyed rom-com is a play of “tension and expectation” with a huge payoff. After ten years in a monogamous relationship, 32-year-old filmmaker João is single and ready to trawl through the apps to find Mr. Next, unprepared for the anxious entanglements to come. Writer-director Daniel Ribeiro, who wowed with 2014 (I+N27) Opening Film, The Way He Looks, introduces us to João (Artur Volpi), the Brazilian Goldilocks of dating. A bull-headed Taurus, he speeds through matches, unable to settle on the right rebound and flummoxed by the results when finding himself infatuated. He gets so desperate as to screenwrite his own romance into being and even hallucinate a lost love, with comical results. Throughout, his strongest chemistry is with his besties, gay “love atheist” Chico (Marcos Oli) and move-in allergic lesbian Alice (Julianna Gerais), who lend an ear and dole out advice over the umpteenth coffee of the day. Unexpectedly, it is in the wisdom of exes and the dynamics of partners he meets and—out of financial desperation—agrees to film for their OnlyFans accounts that João learns that love is not a formula. Chemistry speaks for itself.

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This homage to Bollywood spectacle and intergenerational bonds is a time-hopping, candy-coloured crowd pleaser that induces huge smiles and big laughs while also tackling the resonant themes of enforced gender roles, passive racism, and the seismic shifts of growing up. Azra (a stunning Amrit Kaur) lives in cohabitating sexual bliss with her girlfriend in Toronto in the VHS-popping 90s when she receives news of her father’s death. One voltaic match cut later and she’s on a plane for the funeral in Pakistan with her brother (Ali A. Kazmi), where her mother (Ms. Marvel’s Nimra Bucha) nitpicks and her culture shuts her out of the mourning process. Then another and we’re in 1969 Karachi, swept up in the whirlwind romance of Azra’s rule-breaking mother (also played by Amrit Kaur, underscoring mother-daughter parallels) and dashing father (Hamza Haq) before their tough transition to 1989 Nova Scotia. Each temporal hop peeling back another layer of how Azra’s family dynamic came to be. The Queen of My Dreams is itself a moviegoer’s dream, chock-full of eye-popping visuals, high production value, and fantastic fashion. Revealing how salvation can come in unlikely ways from unlikely sources.

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In writer-director Kat Rohrer’s multilingual romcom about midlife reckonings, the seemingly disparate lives of two in-control women converge. One an Iranian carpenter whose specialty is unfulfilled wives, the other a German doctor, these Viennese immigrants are united by serendipity to discover that butterflies are possible at any age. After twenty years of marriage, straight-laced Dr. Marie Theres (Caroline Peters) finds herself single, drunk, and stumbling into a lesbian bar. There, she catches the eye of Fa (a magnificent Proschat Madani), who is endeared by her sudden wildness. A series of coincidences brings them back to that bar, into the hospital, and under the sheets, the two clicking over being foreigners in a city they love that doesn’t always love them back. Though pulled apart by family drama and cramped closets (both literal and figurative), they are never quite able to shake one another—no matter how hard they may try. This cheering film, which bursts with Feeling and impeccable comedic timing, is about the modern issues that drive and divide us: our private and public selves, what we owe our families, and the moments when protest beats staying put.

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

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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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A recurrence of loss and memory, an adventure of deviation. On a summer night, Guixi and Wu Zhihong, fellow mountain-born children from the same hometown, meet through the isolation of the city, two outsiders wandering through the jungle on the streets of Hangzhou. At dawn, Guixi approaches a quiet, timeless lake.

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One afternoon, three high school students sneak out of their all-girls Catholic boarding school. Sunny, the new girl, has gone for a swim in the river. Sarah is eager to join her, even though Clémence disapproves.

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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.

Queerment QuébecCompetitionShortVIRTUAL

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?

Documentary

Tegan Quin (of Tegan and Sara fame) has been the victim of identity theft and an ongoing catfishing scam for over 15 years. While investigating, she shares for the first time how she was ensnared in toxic fan culture that revealed the dark side of fame. As one of the most influential queer indie rock bands of their generation, Tegan and Sara worked hard to cultivate an inclusive and passionate fanbase around the world. Fans were drawn to the duo’s beautifully confessional lyrics and found within the community a safe space be queer during a time when few bands would declare allyship, let alone celebrate their own queer identity. But Tegan and Sara’s world turned upside down when Tegan’s personal files were hacked in 2011 and weaponized by a bad actor in a complex catfish scheme to ensnare members of this community. Told through Tegan’s own voice, the voices of deceived fans, a trove of communications between fake Tegan and their victims, and the visual history of the band’s behind-the-scenes archive, this documentary feature is a thriller, a caper, a whodunnit, and an intimate personal journey rolled into one.

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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.

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The work of Two-Spirit, nêhiyaw (Cree) artist George Littlechild took the reality of residential schools head-on decades before it would enter the collective Canadian conscience. A Sixties Scoop survivor, Littlechild uses his “whimsical,” improvised technique to unlock colourful exuberance and long-held trauma. Conor McNally, a Métis filmmaker, honours his journey. Littlechild was given his great grandfather’s name, nanekawâsis, at a Powwow in 2001. Both Littlechild and the eponymously named film embody its meaning: “swift child.” As we pay witness to a childhood shuffled between foster homes and Littlechild’s emergence as a fleet-fingered artist, the documentary makes fluid connections between past and present. Archival footage blends with warmly tinted 16mm interviews of 65-year-old Littlechild, still evolving in his practice, still passing on his deeply felt knowledge of his ancestry and “Rainbow” spirit. Whereas his partner, John Powell, uses art to govern his freewheeling tendencies, Littlechild harnesses paint to break free of his circumscribed daily life, healing himself and his audience through enlightened transcendence. nanekawâsis begins and ends with a sky full of colour, beautifully eliding time, revealing how light and dark, expectancy and reflection are all indispensable parts of life’s circle.

Made au CanadaDocumentary

Whether wowing 1960s nightclub audiences with her vocal prowess or vanishing from the scene in a haze of rumours, Jackie Shane never failed to leave her mark. Through recorded conversations with the boundary-bursting yet reclusive icon, and the magic of ghostly, gorgeous rotoscope animation, Jackie is restored to us. Encouraged to leave Jim Crow-era Nashville by Joe Tex so that her talent could soar, Jackie Shane brought her R&B sound and daring charisma to adoring fans everywhere from mafia-controlled Montreal to her beloved Toronto, getting kidnapped and turning down a transphobic Ed Sullivan Show offer along the way. Close friends with Little Richard and an opener for the likes of Etta James and Marvin Gaye, Jackie Shane was an It girl in a time when using “she/her” seemed unthinkable. So she had a choice: global superstardom or her own hard-earned authenticity. This is the story of that choice, told through Jackie’s own words, vibrant reenactments, and assessments by contemporary trans figures, with music as the film’s soul. Executive produced by Elliot Page, Any Other Way is a triumph of the documentary form—as polished and impressive as Jackie herself.

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.

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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?