Film Categories: LGBTQ

  • House of Pain

    “A bold and startling work filled with images at once beautiful and profoundly disturbing, the film is a hybrid of DeSade, Dali and Bataille, a nightmare that takes place somewhere between sleep and death. A profound testament of the body at its limits, whose fantastical vantages lend the body a rare grace… Leave the inner child at home.” – Bill Evans, Metro Cinema “The Canadian avant-garde has found its Salo, and its name is ‘House of Pain.’ Prolific, hugely talented Toronto/Vancouver/Toronto experimental filmmaker Mike Hoolboom’s new feature must be the most transgressive Canadian film ever made. Shot in black-and-white and…

  • How the Hell Are You?

    Based on a correspondence with a gay friend in the sixties, this collage film is a portrait of a person and a decade. Against a montage of found images, the narrator comments on life, love, and the American Dream.

  • Human on My Faithless Arm

    Winner of Honourable Mention (Experimental) at the 1987 Canadian Student Film Festival/Montreal International Film Festival, “Human on My Faithless Arm” shatters the common stereotype of the deaf. The main character, remaining nameless throughout, has rejected “the institution of the deaf” only to find herself, years later, rejected by society. In this multi-dimensional portrait of an individual trapped between self and self-image, issues of sexuality and economics are questioned. This film is an exploration of alienation through techniques of superimposition, sound displacement ,and deconstruction/reconstruction of language, exposing the hearing-impaired women’s comprehension of sound and conversation. “‘Human on My Faithless Arm’ is…

  • I Am the Camera Dying

    A gender-warped tale of Marvette (played by Tracy Wright), a recently deceased heroin addict, who returns to this world as a gorgeous gay sailor who just wants to cruise the boys. A who’s who of local luminaries lend a hand in this funky, funny, experimental ode to mixing it up and making it work, no matter what the circumstances.

  • I Need a Man Like You

    “I Need a Man like You” is funny as it is provocative, and delivers a colourful and zany venue of Toronto’s finest Queen Street performers. Comedian Sheila Gostick is brilliant in her political satire and wildly hilarious as the dancing goddess. Performance artists the Clichettes bring a new awareness to rock culture through their original and unforgettable choreography to some of the great hits of the sixties. Helen Porter, as the killer Dyke in leather, shares a vision of the erotic that is tender, warm, and funny. The film is a timely and playful lampooning of some of the most…

  • I Will Not Think about Death Anymore

    “I Will Not Think about Death Anymore” is a dramatic film about a Jewish lesbian who is obsessed with worries about dying following the death of a friend to AIDS. The fears triggered by this event bring on anxiety attacks common to women at the beginning of a healing process from sexual abuse. The story revolves around an internal adventure and fantasy, where Death becomes a butch dyke in the supermarket. The themes of healing, sexual abuse, dying, and panic attacks intertwine with Jewish identity, and the reclaiming of Jewish ritual for gay and lesbian audiences.

  • It Happened in the Stacks

    A noir melodrama about a librarian’s struggle as she encounters the capricious behaviour of a would-be kennel owner who is searching for a reference. Intrigue, romance, crime and punishment . . . For lesbian librarian Jane Putnam, it all happens in the stacks of the city’s oldest public library. Starring: Eileen O’Toole, Sky Gilbert, Sarah Stanley and Moynan King. Director of photography: Kim Derko. Sound design: Paula Fairfield. Awards: Bronze Award (Fantasy/Horror), Houston Worldfest, 1998

  • Jesus Saves

    The political emotions of the butcher shop are discussed within the codes of Catholicism. Purging Catholic guilt, sins of the flesh, and flesh eating. The confessions of a butcher gone astray. An ambiguous layering of images, one is not sure whether the confessor is human or a pig, or if the priest is a butcher.

  • Jill Johnston: October 1975

    Jill Johnston is the author of “Marmalade Me,” “Gullible’s Travels,” “Lesbian Nation’,” and “Motherbound.” This cinema verité documentary is a portrait of Johnston at work and a feminist author at a transitional point in the women’s movement and in her own career.

  • Keltie’s Beard: A Woman’s Story

    Before Keltie came along, the women in her family removed their facial hair and told no one. Keltie is proud of her beard and tells her story to us in this single-take film.