Queer film (and arts) festival features a new venue and expanded programming
The 11th OUT North Queer Film and Arts Festival is happening April 15 to 19 and promises to be the most expansive iteration of the festival yet. Films range from an essential-viewing documentary on queer history, in Canada, to a funny and offbeat feature about a closeted single father nearing his 40s and contemplating coming out.
The festival will also offer some fun and creative opportunities for people to tell their own stories through film and other media. And for the first year ever, the main festival venue is the Yukon Cinema on Wood Street, thanks to a partnership with the Yukon Film Society.
Selene Vakharia is on the festival’s selection committee and is president of the Yukon Queer Film Alliance.
Vakharia tells me that, in its inaugural year, OUT North was solely a film festival. A few years ago, the organizers started adding local performers to the programming, as well, so that it became “a bit of an arts and film festival.” This year, they put a call out to the community for artists and filmmakers, with successful submissions being shown before the feature films.
“We’re planning to alternate,” they explain. “Some of the features will open with local short films, and some of them will open with a performance by a local artist.”
OUT North is also offering some free learning opportunities for people “with the intention to support the local community in telling their own story.”
“We’re actually going to have some workshops this year that will help people to turn their ideas, their daydreams, whatever stories they want to tell, and get them into a story format.” This will include a “stop motion 101” workshop that will appeal to folks wanting a basic introduction to the medium.
“It felt like a very easy technology to begin on, since you don’t need very complicated tech or skills or editing to use it. And it felt like a fun one to be able to explore with collage or photos or whatever objects you would like.”
For the second workshop, OUT North is teaming up with Good Bird Collective, who produce Yukon’s queer zine, Whitehorse: A Community Zine. The workshop will have participants explore their story in relation to their connection with the land.
And, of course, there will be films. This year’s festival will include six feature films ranging in genre from documentary to drama to comedy. There is even an “adventurous” thriller.
One highlight is Parade: Queer Acts of Love and Resistance, directed by Noam Gonick and produced by the National Film Board of Canada. While there are many films documenting queer history in the U.S., Parade captures the drag shows, community organizing, protests and police raids that are part of Canada’s queer movement legacy, with a focus on Toronto.
“What I really like about that film is that it’s very intersectional, so it tells the story from multiple perspectives of the experience of being queer in Canada,” Vakharia says. “Everything from someone whose husband put her away in a mental health institution and cut off her access to her daughter, to folks who came together to create activism and policy change in the face of the AIDS crisis.”
On the lighter side, a Canadian film called To the Moon, which is about a queer father who is approaching his forties and is wrestling with coming out. The comedy is directed by Kevin Hartford, who lived in the Yukon for a time. Vakharia says that To the Moon shows a trend in films about queer people, where audiences are accepting stories about the characters’ day-to-day lives rather than always expecting to view their trauma.
“So that’s a really nice shift that we’re seeing, where we can tell more stories that are relevant to our daily lives and where we can see ourselves in them and help understand our experiences better, that are also experiences of joy or confusion or love, which is quite lovely … an evolution of queer stories these days.”
Vakharia reflects further to say that “when you are a group that doesn’t often get your voice heard, the first voice people want to hear, from you, is one that’s centred on trauma, or something negative, and it takes a while to be able to get to the point where mainstream is willing to entertain that you also just live life like everyone else and have the same experiences as everyone else.”
The films will resonate with the whole community, Vakharia says, even though they focus on queer characters. “Everyone has the same experiences,” Vakharia explains.
The festival also features a dance party at the theatre, after one of the screenings, as well as opening night at Queer Yukon headquarters, The Cache, on Baxter Street. Vakharia is excited for these events because they give people an opportunity to connect and to meet new people.
Visit the Yukon Queer Film Alliance online at yukonqueerfilmalliance.com for the festival program, passes and tickets, Tickets are also available at the door, and all-access VIP passes are available for people who want to see all the films and get a sweet discount.
