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