Not yet over, the year 2022 has nevertheless been marked by two major international events: the war in Ukraine declared by Russia in February and the revolts that have shaken Iran for two months. True to its mission of spreading diverse LGBTQ+ stories and perspectives, the image + nation festival is enjoying celebrations of its 35e anniversary to offer, among other things, two special sections that allow us to take a new look at these two countries plagued by conflict.
The first is a retrospective dedicated to LGBTQ+ Ukrainian cinema. There are four feature films, half of which were made while its territory was still part of the USSR, when homosexuality was criminalized. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1964) by Sergei Parajanov and Ivin A. (1990) by Igor Chernitskiy thus have in common to slay the Soviet benevolence of the time and submit two stories that are still innovative several decades after their release. Stop-Zemlia (2021) by Kateryna Gornostai and My father is my mother’s brother (2018) by Vadym Ilkov are a fiction and a documentary that explore the emotional state of Ukrainian youth today. Note that the selection of Queer Warriors short films highlights the struggle of these people while the war is raging.
To mark its support for the Iranian men and women who have not stopped revolting since the death of Mahsa Amini on September 16 following his arrest by the morality police of Tehran, image + nation invites its festival-goers to discover its program of short films made by and for women in Iran in order to express loud and clear their desire for freedom. Recent lost swan of Ehsan Abbasi and The Aquarium by Elyas Askarpour and Fatemeh Askarpour, for example, tackle transidentity through two original narrations. Remember that in Iran, there is no law protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and that sexual relations outside heterosexual marriage are illegal.
On the side of local productions
Regulars of image + nation also know to what extent the festival is a must for unearthing rare Canadian pearls, as was the case recently with the presentations of shiva baby Toronto’s Emma Seligman and Wildhood by Nova Scotian Bretten Hannam. This year, moviegoers will have the opportunity to preview Télé-Québec’s comic web series Nichole and the documentary by Julie Vaillancourt, Dominique Bourque and Johanne Coulombe Yesterday’s Amazons, Today’s Lesbians: 40 Years Later, which looks back on the collective and the radical lesbian magazine of the same name published for more than thirty years. Finally, image + nation would not be the same without its traditional cycles of Indigiqueer / Indigenous Voices and Emerging Voices.
Close-up on the opening film
The image + nation festival takes audiences back in time, to the Montreal of the 1980s, thanks to its opening film, Rose by Gail Maurice, screened on November 18 at 7 p.m. at the Imperial Cinema. This is the first feature film by the Saskatchewan-born filmmaker and actress who grew up speaking English and Michif, a Métis language that mixes Cree and French.
Rose tells the colorful and loving story of this young Aboriginal girl who has no choice but to go live with her artist aunt, Fred, after the death of her mother.
Amelie Revert
To see in video