For the past 20 years, Fairytales Queer Film Festival has been highlighting films and documentaries of queer stories from around the world to audiences in Calgary. We chatted with James Demers, Executive Director of Fairytales Film Festival just after the line-up launch. The tail end of the video interview for this article does have some of the trailers of movies that are part of the festival.

For opening night, they will be presenting the first queer history documentary about Calgary called Outliers.

"It is all being made in house. It is being made all by queer and young film makers which is really exciting. And we have had a lot of really strong community participation and support to make the documentary happen. It is opening the festival. It is our way of giving back to the community that have supported us for so long."

During the Fairytales 2018 Queer Film Festival line-up launch, 15 minutes of the documentary was previewed. In the audience were a lot of people that helped bring the documentary together.

"The documentary starts in 1960. So being able to enter a hotel bar in the 1960’s as a woman was a not an option unless you were escorted and there were separate entrances. So lesbian meet-ups were really complicated, which is why we featured the Cecil as one of the few places lesbian could go meet up, because the restrictions on women in 1960’s Calgary were significant comparatively let alone for in the queer community"

James is expecting that opening night will be a packed house, so screenings for the documentary will be added during the festival. The documentary will also be shown at Edmonton Pride and Lethbridge Pride.

Another highlight for the festival is happening on Sunday night.

"We are also doing what I am calling the Gender Warriors Double Feature. We will be bringing in four special guests and showing four films together. Two shorts and two features, the whole package is about three and a half hours. All of them exist in a space where they are transitioning or dealing with gender identity issues in a heavily masculine focused fields. It allows us to investigate through the course of these films and these people, what does it mean to address feminine gender fluidity, and what does it mean to be a woman, or what does it mean to be a trans woman in the context of being a firefighter or a power lifter. So, we are going to have all four the special guests from each film in the theatre. They will get to meet each other for the first time. If you are new to gender expression or gender identity or understandings around that, this the perfect film package for you to take a look at. "

Tuesday night will highlight intersectionality through the Indigenous lens using shorts and full movies. One of the shorts featured is produced by famous Canadian artist Kent Monkman, who was interviewed by GayCalgary back in February 2010, (http://www.gaycalgary.com/a1552) and July 2013 (http://www.gaycalgary.com/a3569 ).  There will be a Q&A with some of the producers of the movies shown.

The festival will again have a sing-a-long night with the Calgary Men’s Chorus. This year it will be the musical Rent which will be on Thursday night. You don’t need a perfect singing voice, everyone can enjoy singing alongside the talented voices of Calgary Men’s Chorus.

With many ways of telling queer stories, Fairytales Queer Film Festival also needed to rebrand.

"20 years ago, Fairytales was just a film festival and I don’t mean that in any terrible way. At the time it was ground breaking in a lot of ways and it still continues to be. The film festival gives us the opportunity to represent queer voices on film. Over a period of time we have requests from audience members to expand that. So, the Outreels program came out of people coming up to us saying ‘Hey, I really liked that movie. Can I show it to my church? We are having a conversation about affirming.’ So, the Outreels Diversity Program grew out of that. Naturally the Youth Queer Media Program was the opportunity for young film makers to make their first film and premiere it at the festival. We supported the Coming Out Monologues through their whole run. We booked rehearsal space and worked with them. Then we offered to financially under pin the work that they do and that took us out of film for the first time. So, it took us to this place of theatre, spoken word and monologues. What we would like to do with this change in a shift from the Fairytales Film Presentation Society to the Calgary Queer Arts Society is to leave ourselves open to multiple disciplines. Because if we can be the bastions of queer stories in whatever art form for them to need to be told for that to be fulfilling for the individual, then I would love to be in that position. We are looking at doing incubating of the revival of a well-known queer theatre company that used to be here, so stay tuned for that. It has not been confirmed yet, but it is on its way."

Check out the Calgary Queer Arts Society website for the schedule of the 2018 Fairytales Queer Film Festival as well as more information about the other programs they offer.

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Contributor Steve Polyak |

Locale Calgary |

Topic Community | Fairy Tales Film Festival | Film Festival | History | Movies | Video |