Jessica Dollard means business! As Fairy Tales Presentation Society’s programming and festival director, Jessica is planning on leading what was once Alberta’s largest GLBTQ film festival into “a full queer cultural arts festival that celebrates and showcases visual artists, musicians, actors and dancers, with the film festival always being at [it’s]core.” That’s a tall order for someone who has been in the position for a mere four months. Without a doubt however, this founder of feminist theatre company Urban Curvz will make it happen.
Fairytales Diversity Film Festival, currently in its 12th year, has three main objectives. As they phrase it, the first is to “bring a rich selection of seldom seen films to the Calgary and Southern Alberta audience that - given the limited distribution network - audiences may otherwise not have a chance to see.” Secondly, it hopes “to support the work of local, national and international filmmakers” as it thirdly, “create[s] an atmosphere of respect, inclusivity, tolerance, and pride within and outside, of the GLBTQ community.”
Looking forward, Jessica foresees Fairytales striving to be a social convener, in an effort to build the Calgary queer community around the arts. This is definitely reflected in the new logo unveiled just last month. “The new logo is for the society (not the film festival alone) and is an expression of this vision.”
Thus far, since Jessica’s appointment to programming and festival director, Fairytales has made quite an impact on Calgary’s queer community, bringing in seasoned fans and many new ones. REELS ON WHEELS, a program providing education to the local community through the means of filmmaking and other art forms, has just been established as a new outreach endeavour for the Society. Additionally, Fairy Tales single night screening of Shorts for all Sorts: Queer Film Quickies at the Uptown Theatre was shown to a packed theatre, and an amazing reception, followed by a lively after party at the Marquee Room.
Kicking off 2010, Fairytales will present 2 Hot 2 Handle: a Night with Paul Wong on January 28th at the Glenbow Museum, with an after party at Mango Shiva Restaurant. Paul Wong, a Governor General’s Award winning video artist, will be displaying his exhibit at the museum and showing his short films. “It’ll be just what this city needs to thaw out at the end of January,” exclaims Jessica.
This past month, Jessica and the Fairytales office have moved locations. Not too far away from its prior location in the Calgary Outlink office, they are now located just down the hall in the same building. It is worth visiting the Fairy Tales office for its library of over 700 feature films, documentaries, shorts and TV series, all available for members to borrow; purchase a $10.00 membership at the office during its operating hours. This membership also allows discounts at Fairytales events including Festival passes and tickets.
This upcoming Fairytales Film Festival, runs over the course of 9 days, from May 27th to June 4th, 2010. According to Dollard, the festival will continue to reflect and challenge our changing Canadian cultural landscape.
