Upstairs Inferno
2017-02-01 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Toronto) | The Screening Room, 120 Princess Street, Kingston, Ontario, K7L 5M6, Canada
Upstairs Inferno
Robert L. Camina/USA/96min/2015
Narrated by Christopher Rice, this documentary is an investigative and compassionate look at the 1973 deadly arson of a New Orleans gay bar called ‘The Upstairs Lounge’: an event which held the title of “Largest gay mass murder in U.S history” for 43 years.
Upstairs Inferno isn’t simply an exposition of the facts. This doc brings humanity into the headlines by shining a light on the very painful effect the tragedy had on survivors, witnesses and loved ones. Their interviews are gut-wrenching and insightful. Some of the people interviewed hadn’t publicly discussed the fire until now. The filmmakers hope that audiences walk away from the film with a renewed call for compassion for members of an oppressed society.
Community Sponsor: Education on Queer Issues Project (EQuIP)

A Little Lust + Josh
2017-02-01 21:00 - 23:00
A Little Lust (Ne Giulietta, ne Romeo)
Veronica Pivetti/Italy/102min/2015/Italian with Eng. subtitles
Sixteen-year-old Rocco’s two aims in life are to get laid and to see his favorite pop star in concert with his best friends, sassy and tomboyish Maria and nerdy and quiet Mauri. When a bullying incident at school forces Rocco to come out to his divorced middle-class parents, their liberal leanings are severely tested. Luckily his two friends stand by him and join him in running away from home (in his parents stolen car) to see their favorite singer in concert, followed hot on their heels by his neurotic mother and eccentric gran to hilarious effect.
A vibrant , funny coming out tale,, ‘A Little Lust’ is both immersive and totally life-affirming.

Preceded by
Josh by Miles McCraw/Canada/12:58/2015
After learning about the LGBT community, Joshua decides to leave home on his Rumspringa. He arrives in the city and sets out to find Austin, the boy that told him about the community.

Daddy's Boy + Last Vestiges
2017-02-02 19:00 - 20:30
Daddy’s Boy
Daniel Armando/USA/78min/2015
Four young men, each somewhere near the crossroads where boyhood and adulthood meet, find their lives intertwined in the strange world of low-budget porn and male burlesque photo shoots in New York City. Max (Al Miro) is a suave, handsome Italian living in Canada who has become somewhat of a regular in the adult film scene. Checking into a hotel before the shoot, he struggles to put his feelings toward his distant father into a letter. Elsewhere in the city, Max meets and exchanges phone numbers with Fabian (Joe Lopez), a Puerto Rican from Queens with latent homosexual tendencies, who is grappling with the challenges of becoming a father for the first time and hearing an unexpected revelation from his own dad. Manuel (Jonathan Iglesias), a quiet but confident midnight cowboy from Arizona, makes his way to New York to shoot a porn scene with Max. While in town, he reaches out to his estranged older brother Jorge (James Koroni), a somber dancer in a loveless relationship with an overly critical photographer. With a nod to the French New Wave and a dash of Cassavetes, writer-director Daniel Armando weaves themes of fatherhood, family, and manhood into a beautifully stylized, enormously evocative, and highly erotic sketch of contemporary New York City that feels timeless with its stunning black-and-white cinematography.
Preceded by
Last Vestiges by Seth Poulin/Canada/7:43/2016
During a night of harsh rejections, Eddy notices an elderly man staring at him from across the club. Desperate for attention and money, Eddy offers the man a dance. But once the two are alone in a private booth, things take an unexpected turn.

Community Sponsor: Men’s Health HARS

Paris 05:59:Theo & Hugo + HeimatXXX
2017-02-02 21:00 - 23:00
Paris 05:59: Theo & Hugo
Jacques Martineau, Olivier Ducastel/FRANCE/97min/2016/French with English subtitles
Explicit sex has rarely been used to explore the contours of a new relationship as effectively as in Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau’s new film—an exquisite return for the pair after Born in ’68 and Côte d’Azur. In the wee hours of the night at a Paris sex club called Impact, Theo spots the handsome Hugo just a couple of naked bodies away. After some intense glances—and even more intense sex—they leave together, joyfully exclaiming that their intercourse “helped with world peace.” Riding their bikes through the mostly deserted streets, the two young men begin a conversation that will take them through the evening and traverse an extraordinary range of personal and psychological territory. Shifting from a lengthy X-rated sequence to the dialogue-driven territory of Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy or Andrew Haigh’s Weekend requires a careful balancing act indeed, but it’s what makes Paris 05:59 (winner of a Panorama Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Berlin International Film Festival) so remarkable.
Preceded by
Heimat XXX by Sebastian Dominic Auer/Germany/11:46/2016
Set against pastoral mountains and musty oak forests, two sweaty men lose their inhibitions in this gay, mystical, and erotic award-winning short film.

Community Sponsor: Men’s Health HARS

Girl Gets Girl + The Mathematics of a Lesbian Kiss
2017-02-03 19:00 - 20:45
Girl Gets Girl
Sonia Sebastian/Spain/88:00/2015
Inés has lived the American dream in Miami for nine years. When she’s caught cheating on her girlfriend, her world tumbles down. For the first time in years Inés asks herself what she wants in life… and she knows the answer. It’s time to get back home, to get back to Madrid… even if it means she will have to face the huge mess she left behind.
What Inés really wants is to finally succeed in seducing Lola, the hot straight best friend of Verónica Psyco, the woman Inés left nine years ago… pregnant and on their wedding day! And as usual, Inés has chosen the worst time ever: she arrives in the middle of a party at Lola and Verónica´s shared home. There she meets Candela, Verónica´s daughter (and almost hers) and all the women and friends she once left.
Will she runaway again or is it finally time to settle down? Much hilarity and chaos ensues as Inés finds her way back to her heart.
Preceded by
The Mathematics of a Lesbian Kiss by Sabine Lebel & Alison Taylor/Canada/4:09/2015
Two women contemplate the similarities between a lesbian bar in San Jose, Costa Rica, and the dyke bar scene in Toronto, Canada, from decades earlier. Shot entirely on iPhones 5S and 5C.

Community Sponsor: Queen’s Pride Project

The Cult + Famous Diamonds
2017-02-03 21:00 - 23:00
The Cult
Andre Antonio/BRAZIL/70min/2015/Portuguese with English Subtitles
In the lugubrious future (a breezy 2040), Earth is abandoned for interplanetary colonization and only the disaffected remain. Too bored to travel and immunized from the need to sleep, they lounge languidly in ornate interiors, whiling away the hours with hookups. This confident first feature brims with vibrant ambiance and lush cinematography, taking its time to reveal the namesake cult and its rituals, which run just this side of Kenneth Anger. It’s Kubrick by way of Coppola (Sofia, that is) with a dash of Ozon to keep things queer.
Preceded by
Famous Diamonds by Daniel McIntyre/Canada/7:01/2016
A kaleidoscopic diary trapped inside a volcano, Famous Diamonds studies lies, love, and desire through the eyes of an exploding icon.

Community Sponsor: Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre

Check It
2017-02-04 14:00 - 15:30
Check It
d. Dana Flor & Toby Oppenheimer/USA/90min/2016
Desperate to survive in a city where being true to who you are can get you killed, a group of black gay and trans teens form a gang in Washington, D.C., to protect one another. Check It, the first documented gang of its kind, is dedicated to keeping black gay and trans youth safe when no one else will. After starting off with just a few people in 2009, the group has grown so large that no one can keep an accurate count of its members. In a country where black bodies are seen as criminal from birth, Check It functions as a radical act of resistance.

This intimate portrayal follows Check It members, using what few resources they have, as they navigate the world—including Tray, a gay teen determined to make sure that other young people don’t have to go through the same hardships he did; Alton, a trans woman who has been taking care of herself and her friends since she fled her home at the age of 14; and Skittles, a talented amateur boxer who refuses to sacrifice his femme aesthetic when he steps into the ring. This crew of teens does their best to defend one another from state, police, and interpersonal violence, determined to be seen as the brilliant beings they are.
Community Sponsor: OPIRG Kingston

Arianna + Dawn
2017-02-04 16:00 - 17:40
Arianna
Carlo Lavagna/Italy/84min/2015/Italian with English Subtitles
Arianna was born three times: once as a boy; three years later as a girl; and finally, fully, during a sultry lakeside summer, when she discovers that she is neither, or both—intersessuale. At 19, the captivating pale-eyed beauty looks as if she had stepped out of a Renaissance painting, with her boyish figure, tousled hair, and fine nose. But there is anxiety behind her eyes—she has not yet begun menstruating, and despite reassurances from her doctor father, the hormone patches have resulted in not much more than aching breasts. When she arrives with her parents at their country retreat near Lake Bolsena, it has been 16 years since her last visit there, and Ari is struck by memories of her old bedroom, her three-year-old best friend, and something else, something mysterious and indescribable. To make matters more confusing, her teenage cousin Celeste has suddenly blossomed and is busy exploring her sexuality while Arianna fumbles with her own. Director Carlo Lavagna’s dreamily fragmented ode to self-discovery is ripe and unrushed; its sensitive camerawork, revelatory. With a convincing performance by newcomer Ondina Quadri in the title role, Arianna is a coming-of-age story that gives no pat resolution, but instead opens up into the beauty of uncertainty.
Preceded by
Dawn by Jake Graf/UK/13:00/2016
As dawn creeps across London, two lost outcasts meet in the darkness, more afraid of themselves than each other. As the sun begins to rise, and the veil of night is lifted, the pair are forced to look at themselves and face the harsh reality that life is sometimes what you make it, and that in the cold light of day, it takes more than the eyes to see inside a soul.

Community Sponsor: Queen’s University Department of Gender Studies

Center of My World
2017-02-04 19:00 - 21:30
Center of My World
Jakob M. Erwa/GERMANY/AUSTRIA/115min/2016
Gorgeously adapted from the best-selling YA novel by Andreas Steinhofel, Center of My World tells the story of 17 year old Phil and the drama he faces once returning from summer camp. Phil lives in a whimsical mansion in the woods with his eccentric mother Glass and his twin sister, Dianne, with little contact with the nearby village. The villagers find the family enigmatic and strange and there are whispers that Glass may be some sort of sorceress. A mysterious and beautiful new student, Nicholas, stirs new feelings in Phil that leads to a passionate love affair, despite the jealousy it causes from Phil’s best friend Kat. Phil must learn to navigate his destiny and become the center of his own world.
Preceded by
Saturn Devours by Johnnie Walker/Canada/14:00/2016
A young man experiences a string of bad luck at the same time a man resembling the Ancient Roman god Saturn starts following him around.

Filmmaker in Attendance

Community Sponsor: Beers For Queers & EngiQueers Queen’s University

The Revival: Women and the Word
2017-02-05 12:00 - 13:30
The Revival: Women and The Word
d.Sekiya Dorsett/USA/82min/2016
Among a congregation of queer women of color artists, the Holy Trinity—“the poet, the people, and the poem”—is the heart of a tour centering on the power, inspiration, and real-talk of a group of five poets who hit the road to perform in seven states in nine days. Featuring Jade Foster, Be Steadwell, Jonquille Rice, T’ai Freedom Ford, and Eli Turner, the journey to grow community ultimately challenges and impacts their own relationships to the people and art in their lives. Touching on the history of Black women creating space for art and resistance in 1970s Harlem, to gender presentation and fashion, to confronting racism and police violence, filmmaker Sekiya Dorsett captures a story of queer women of color rarely told. Through stunning performances and conversations that surface in a cramped tour minivan, this documentary provides an intimate look at a range of experiences and identities—enriched with interviews from leading Black feminist thinkers, elders, and historians, including Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Nikki Finney, Alexis Deveaux, and CC Carter. Ultimately, the life-saving, life-giving power of words is the foundation of a project so moving it will leave you saying “amen.”

Preceded by a Spoken Word Performance by
Yve Patrimoine
Although Yve has a love for numbers; having an economics degree and working in an investment firm, she does not shy away from words either. Yve is not new to the writing scene but she has only been performing her poetry for two years. She’s written various poems and stories since she was little and continues to do so. Yve aims to inspire and move her audience with her pieces.

Community Sponsor: Kingston Poetry Collective

Play The Devil + Black Men and Me
2017-02-05 14:00 - 15:45
Play The Devil
Maria Govan/TRINIDAD & TOBAGO/THE BAHAMAS/USA/89min/2016
Gregory, a gifted working-class teenager from Paramin, stars in a theatre play that brings him to the attention of James, an affluent businessman. The two men strike an uncanny friendship as James takes Greg under his wing, pushing him to discover himself professionally, creatively, and intimately. Confused, Greg must at once deal with the return of his drug addicted father, and navigate through the early days of adulthood. As Carnival Monday approaches and the locals prepare for the annual male initiation parade, Greg must confront James- an act which will culminate in life changing events for him.
Winner! Jury Award for Best Feature Film- qFLIX Philadelphia 2016
Preceded by
Black Men and Me by Michele Pearson Clarke/Canada/5:57/2006
A woman explores her position as a Trinidadian dyke and her complex relationship with black men. Shot in a barbershop, a traditional gathering place for black men, she has her head shaved while she reflects on her black masculinity.

Closing Gala: Fair Haven + Genderize
2017-02-05 16:00 - 18:00
Fair Haven
Kerstin Karlhuber/USA/90min/2016
A young man returns to his family farm, after a long stay in ex-gay conversion therapy, and is torn between the expectations of his emotionally distant father, and the memories of a past, loving relationship he has tried to bury.
Fair Haven was shot in upstate New York and features Tom Wopat (Dukes of Hazzard, Django Unchained) Michael Grant (Secret Life of the American Teenager) Gregory Harrison (Reckless, Trapper John MD) and Jennifer Taylor (Two and a Half Men).
Filmmakers in Attendance
Preceded by
Genderize by Chase Joynt/Canada/14:00/2016
What do kids know about gender? Probably more than you think. In 2012, director Chase Joynt sat down with Benton (12), Madeleine (10) and Dexter (6) to talk about gender, puberty, school, and parents. In 2016, he revisited the kids to follow up with similar questions, but not before the kids flipped the camera on the adults to ask questions of their own. The result is a poignant, hilarious and urgent call for a life where family matters, gender is fluid, and everyone gets to live a life where you choose your own adventure.
Community Sponsor: Tir Nan Og Irish Pub
