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BeatRoute Magazine [AB] print e-edition - [May 2018]

BeatRoute Magazine is a monthly arts and entertainment paper with a predominant focus on music – local, independent or otherwise. The paper started in June 2004 and continues to provide a healthy dose of perversity while exercising rock ‘n’ roll ethics.

BeatRoute Magazine is a monthly arts and entertainment paper with a predominant focus on music – local, independent or otherwise. The paper started in June 2004 and continues to provide a healthy dose of perversity while exercising rock ‘n’ roll ethics.

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FILM<br />

The little fest that grew and grew<br />

despite threats to cut funds and plant bombs<br />

This years festival will mark the 20th anniversary<br />

of Fairy Tales Film Festival’s opening. Over<br />

the past 20 years, Fairy Tales has shown great<br />

resilience and grown into a non-profit organization<br />

focused on supporting LGBTQ voices. If that’s<br />

not enough to wow you, they even made their<br />

own movie this year.<br />

Festival Director, James Demers, says, “I think<br />

it’s really significant that Calgary has maintained<br />

a steady and well organized and kind of forward<br />

thinking queer film festival in a city that doesn’t,<br />

hasn’t always been a bastion for visibility. I think<br />

that was really interesting and I think we’ve<br />

started to see people coming to the festival who<br />

are starting to be interested in stories that don’t<br />

personally relate to their experience, which I think<br />

has inherent value.”<br />

According to Demers this is particularly<br />

important because, “Queer spaces are becoming<br />

fewer and farther in between. We’re losing bars.<br />

So, a place where the community can gather is<br />

actually vanishingly rare. We provide one of those<br />

spaces, and I think there’s real value in that.”<br />

Yet, that doesn’t mean Fairy Tales went unnoticed.<br />

Before the festival was established they held<br />

an event at the Glenbow Museum. Demers says,<br />

“There was a precursor to Fairy Tales called The<br />

Fire Within, that was a short three film series held<br />

at the Glenbow. There were massive protests for<br />

the Glenbow partnering with that. They had their<br />

funding very seriously threatened by a bunch of<br />

private donors and chose to support the festival<br />

anyway. So we, the organizers at the time, made<br />

what they call the elevator pitch of the season and<br />

ran down there to change that.”<br />

But, the threats didn’t stop there.<br />

In the early years, Fairy Tales received “bomb<br />

BY GREGORY BALANKO-DICKSON<br />

threats.” Although none of the threats were credible.<br />

“All you need to do is call in a bomb threat to<br />

try and call off a festival,” says Demers.<br />

Despite the protests, Fairy Tales grew in<br />

popularity. “It was so popular,” says Demers, “that<br />

we eventually ended up in a situation where<br />

Fairy Tales really needed to be its own thing. The<br />

interest was really high and the critical discussions<br />

around the films and the way that the films were<br />

selected was taking a lot more time, and so developing<br />

it into its own organization made the most<br />

practical sense.”<br />

Other programs are being developed at Fairy<br />

Tales, including an “artists in residence” program,<br />

and a “transgendered education” program that<br />

will be some of the “first curriculum specific”<br />

courses that teach medical students how to<br />

“address the concerns of trans patients.”<br />

“Our programs have a lot of opportunities<br />

for community members and allies alike,” says<br />

Demers.<br />

And while creating these opportunities isn’t<br />

always an easy task, Demers and his team are<br />

always up for the challenge.<br />

“Trying to create opportunities for you to be<br />

represented in media is a complicated task. It<br />

takes a lot of work and forethought and critical<br />

self reflection to create an event that is authentic<br />

to experiences that are so rarely shown,” says<br />

Demers, “there’s a lot of experimentation and<br />

creative work and I think that adds to the pool of<br />

queer films to be totally honest.”<br />

Demers believes that these films give the<br />

LGBTQ community the opportunity to see<br />

“self-representation” and “teaches you that there<br />

is something beyond your struggle to strive for,<br />

and that you deserve that.”<br />

FAIRYTALES <strong>2018</strong><br />

flims to be seen and experienced<br />

As the largest queer film festival in Canada<br />

outside of Vancouver and Toronto, the Fairy<br />

Tales Film Festival has attracting over 35,000 patrons<br />

since 1999 featuring dozens of entertaining<br />

and thought-provoking films each year.<br />

When you’ve spent the last 20 years as a pillar<br />

in the arts community, the expectation to deliver<br />

new and exciting programming can be daunting.<br />

Fairy Tales, however, does this with ease and has<br />

curated the best of the best in queer cinema for<br />

their week long festival in <strong>May</strong>. Here are some<br />

of <strong>BeatRoute</strong>’s picks for what we think are your<br />

best bets for this year’s fest. Congrats on 20 years,<br />

Fairy Tales!<br />

DISOBEDIENCE<br />

Based on the book of the same name, Disobedience<br />

stars your two favourite Rachels (Weisz<br />

and McAdams) as Ronit and Esti, two women<br />

who rekindle their teenage romance when Ronit<br />

(Weisz) returns home to their Orthodox Jewish<br />

community. A heavy drama that touches on<br />

religion, desire, and sexuality (and the repression<br />

of all three), Disobedience has earned critical<br />

acclaim for Weisz’s and McAdam’s performances,<br />

as well as it’s subversion of the ever present malegaze<br />

in the film’s lustful (and much talked about)<br />

sex scene.<br />

A MOMENT IN THE REEDS<br />

Nothing is more tender and nostalgic than a<br />

sweet summer romance, and this Finnish drama<br />

is no exception. Leevi, a university student in Paris<br />

who returns home to Finland over the summer<br />

break to help renovate his estranged families<br />

lakehouse, and Tareq, an architect who has fled<br />

his native Syria and has been hired by Leevi’s<br />

father to help with the renovation, kindle a<br />

romance during their shared summer. With Leevi<br />

anxious to leave Finland behind and start a life in<br />

France, and Tareq still adjusting to his new life in<br />

Finland, both men find struggle with the concept<br />

of “home” and what it means to find acceptance.<br />

BY MORGAN CAIRNS<br />

Signature Move – a wrestling romance.<br />

tell his mother that Brooke is a transwoman.<br />

Challenging the traditions of the American<br />

workplace and family, Woman on Fire is the<br />

uplifting story of a true badass babe that you<br />

won’t want to miss.<br />

REBELS ON POINTE<br />

Like a dream come true, Rebels on Pointe is<br />

the documentary story of Les Ballets Trockadero<br />

de Monte Carlo-an all male drag ballet<br />

troupe. Gaining a cult following in their 40+<br />

years as a company, Les Ballets Trockadero<br />

mixes camp and high art in a way that makes<br />

for delightful documentary subject matter.<br />

Following both the troupe as a whole and the<br />

individual dancers, this playful doc took four<br />

years to film, and is worth every second.<br />

SIGNATURE MOVE<br />

Zaynab is a thirty-something Pakistani lawyer<br />

who spends her days taking care of her TV<br />

obsessed mother, and her nights training<br />

in Lucha wrestling. Having yet to come<br />

out to her mother, Zaynab seems content<br />

to keep her two worlds separate from her<br />

mother; that is, until she meets Alba. While<br />

free-spirited Alba is at first hesitant to form a<br />

relationship with the closeted Zaynab, their<br />

relationship blossoms and they find they both<br />

have something to learn from each other.<br />

While the struggling romance may be at the<br />

centre of this film, Zaynab’s mother, watching<br />

Pakistnai soap operas and peering through<br />

her apartment window with binoculars trying<br />

to find her daughter a husband, is the comic<br />

relief that really steals the show.<br />

WOMAN ON FIRE<br />

One half of <strong>May</strong> 27’s Gender Warrior double<br />

feature, Woman on Fire is the story of<br />

Brooke Guinan, the first openly transgender<br />

firefighter in New York City. Following Brooke<br />

through her transition, this inspiring doc not<br />

only touches on Brooke’s career as a third<br />

generation FDNY firefighter, but also on her<br />

life outside the firehouse, and how the two<br />

intertwine. Named “New York’s Bravest” by<br />

the Village Voice, Brooke faces the challenges<br />

Go to www.calgaryqueerartssociety.com for the<br />

of being a woman in a typically male profession,<br />

while simultaneously trying to build a<br />

full lineup and schedule.<br />

life with her boyfriend, Jim, who has yet to<br />

FILM BEATROUTE • MAY <strong>2018</strong> | 15

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