Flashback

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A young trans man returns to his family’s farm in rural southern Ontario following his grandfather’s death, and must navigate the discomforts of familial rural life with his father.

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A gay millennial reels after breaking-up with a popular influencer.

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I asked various AI to create images and narratives of black wonder womxn fighting in Florida. These are their responses: White supremacism, sexism, homotransphobia are spreading across the web. Let’s play with it and get back some power.

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One day this kid will feel something stir in his heart and throat and mouth. One day this kid will reach a point where he senses a division that isn’t mathematical. One day this kid will talk.

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Inspired by true events, in 1970 an unorthodox mother sends her offbeat son from New Brunswick on a wintry cross-country mission past Quebec to retrieve his brother from Toronto after a public sex violation. Antics ensue in the Two-Solitudes atmosphere, bursting with revealing humour about brotherly love and French-English relations. In bravura performances, Alan Cumming plays motormouth Perley—dressed in an ushanka and ascot, taxidermied dog tucked under his arm—and Charlie Creed-Miles is Weldon—a gruff stoic in crooked glasses. These oddball siblings travel through frozen nights and across the language divide as they bicker, break down, and ultimately bond in their journey through central and eastern Canada. Weldon forced to confront the reality of Perley’s homosexuality (and his abject fear of being required to speak French) as he processes a horrific event from their past. After a lifetime of shutting down, a new set of dire circumstances has them opening their ears to hear one another’s stories. Award-winning filmmaker Michael Clowater, a master of wringing humour from pain, never loses sight of Perley and Weldon’s essential humanity among the pratfalls and bigotries, embedding beautiful truths in the film’s engrossing frictions.

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In the vein of the Tony award-winning musical Stereophonic, this must-see drama is a Behind the Music-style glimpse of a 2000s Toronto indie band with Fleetwood Mac-like flare ups. With a trans frontman and queer members, The New Normals break boundaries while breaking one another’s hearts. Building off the source material, the novel Heidegger Stairwell by Kayt Burgess, Karen Knox maintains balletic control of multiple perspectives and aesthetics, following how each of the five core members handles firsts: first music video, first phone sex job, first love triangle. Music saves this close-knit crew from quarrels when it’s not causing them, but it’s the in-fighting, the “threads of connection and tension” that keep their audience hungering for more. Will the trans frontman (Lane Webber) stay with his queer girlfriend and songwriting partner (June Laporte) or find a different tune with Lugh (Daniel Gravelle)? Will the band survive or live on only in tribute? These concerns converge in a film charged with envy, creative friendship, and reckless love, and chock-full of pedigreed talent, including co-writing credits from award-winning Canadian writer, Zoe Whittall and festival alumni, Pat Mills as well as original songs from Stars’ Torquil Campbell.

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Between loads of laundry at the corner laundromat, Cooper shares the tumultuous story of her gender reassignment journey.

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A possessive doctor prepares an ostensibly romantic bath for his narcissistic boyfriend, but after an accusation of infidelity, things take a deeply disturbing turn.

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Six longtime friends—and one enticing “nymph”—trek to Nova Scotia’s scenic eastern shore to attend a Good Riddance party in celebration of Darcy’s divorce. There, amongst long pours of wine, tangled histories collide in uproarious ways in this wistful dark comedy. Darcy (Lesley Smith) is finally free of matrimony. But that puts her in the sights of jittery heartthrob Dax (Hilary Adams), who has a habit of using sex and her music career as a balm. Her other friends are there for guidance, but they too have some major distractions: “boozebag” Lucy (Jessica Marie Brown) is reeling from a breakup, Lauren (Nicole Steeves) is insecure about the wandering eye of Phoebe (Faly Mevamanana), and the two Julies (Stephanie Clarke, Kat McCormack) are glowingly pregnant but stagnant in the boudoir. Perennial lake activities—hiking, swimming, taking too much Molly—bring them together, while the weight of shared baggage threatens to sink their proverbial canoe. Writer-director Tara Thorne infuses Lakeview with the bite of her audacious revenge thriller Compulsus (I+N35, 2022), adding rat-a-tat-tat humour as she ping-pongs deftly between one crisis to another, charting the zippy chemistry and pliancy of true friendship.

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A short queer history of violent police raids on queer bars between the 70s and 2000s, and the rise of LGBTQ+ communities fighting back. Tribute to Joe Rose.