Gay Calgary had the chance to talk with James Demers, executive director of the Fairy Tales Film Festival. This year, the local queer film fest is called For Lovers And Fighters and the first things up for discussion were the six colourful queer characters, inspired by fairytales and storytelling. As James said, "It’s just an interesting way for us to play with our name and stereotypes common in queer culture."
And play they did, while also managing to come up with a diverse set of mascots. The characters include a unicorn, a butch lesbian Robin Hood, a cave bear in a leather harness, a drag queen Tinkerbell, a "sassy mermaid", and last but not least, an indigenous two-spirit character.
This last one got GC’s attention. "We worked in partnership with the indigenous community to create a two-spirit character," James said.
The two-spirit character stood out from the other Fairy Tale mascots. GC raised the question, "Anybody can be a two-spirit, so I’m wondering what the fairy tale aspect of that is?"
"It wasn’t to single anyone out," James said. He goes on to explain that the focus was characters across fairytales, and that included from indigenous storytelling. "It just made sense to have an indigenous character from the indigenous story telling tradition." In addition, the six characters will be featured on shirts, which will be sold with the proceeds going to an indigenous organization.
Although these characters are just mascots, the diversity does reflect the diversity of the films that will be shown this year, including a few indigenous films. The first pride documentary film out of Nunavut, for example, Two Soft Things, Two Hard Things, will be showing from May 22nd-27th. The documentary brings light to LGBT issues in indigenous communities and how history has impacted and continues to impact queer people. As a bonus, one of the directors will be at the Fairy Tale Film Festival.
Another indigenous film is a short only 6 minutes long called 1999 Two-Spirit Introductory Special, an infomercial-styled short explaining the two-spirit identity. It will be showing at the film festival on May 24th as part of the Queer People of Colour night.
The Same Difference is another film featuring people of colour and will show on Social Justice night, May 24th. James describes this as the "cultural development of the African-American lesbian community in the states." The director of The Same Difference will be visiting all the way from New York.
Having covered some of the films, GC and James moved on to other happenings at the festival this year. The festival, which officially kicked off Friday evening, will have Mama Mia! as the feature for their annual sing-along.
Queer Folk Read Things They Wrote Once Upon A Time, previously called Queer Folk Read Things They Wrote In The Closet, is also back after making a big splash at last year’s festival, and this time there will be a much larger venue to accommodate the enthusiastic crowd. According to James, there had been nearly twice the response expected at last year’s festival.
For anyone unfamiliar with the event, James described it as "people reading their childhood journals." "They can’t edit the source material in this case, they just have to read what they actually wrote which makes it much more interesting." Indeed, going back and reading work from before coming out can be an intimate thing. The popular spoken-word event takes place on the 25th of May.
As for this year’s KINK party on May 26th, a dramatization of the life of the erotic artist, Tom of Finland, titled the same, will be featured. Tom of Finland started doing art in 1947 in occupied Finland and came of age during the mafia occupation. This influenced his militaristic uniform style of art, which in turn, James said, "developed what we understand as modern north American perception of leather culture."
As for new events happening for the first time this year, James mentioned a "mystery film". When pressed for details, he only said the film would be open to volunteers and pass-holders. "Why would I tell a reporter?" So, if the mystery’s killing you, there’s one more reason to go get your passes now!
Before saying goodbye, GC asked James for one final recommendation: an "underdog" of sorts. James is quick to answer with the recommendation of Gloria and Grace, showing on the 21st at 9pm. It’s a film about estranged siblings coming together again after a terrible diagnosis. Like all the films lined up for this year’s Fairy Tale Film Fest, this one will be worth a watch.
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Locale Calgary |
Topic Arts | Fairy Tales Film Festival | Film Festival | Theatre |
