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Gay Culture in Canada (Ages 15-17)

Gay Culture in Canada (Ages 15-17)

This film selection that takes us from 1960s Saskatchewan to present-day Syria in order to explore powerful stories about the LGBTQ experience here in Canada and abroad.

Films in This Playlist Include
Love, Scott
I Like Girls
First Stories: Two Spirited
Deep Inside Clint Star
Cure for Love
Last Chance
A Short Film About Tegan and Sara
Someone Like Me
Unarchived
Michel Marc Bouchard: Speaking Out
Woman Dress

  • Someone Like Me
    2021|1 h 19 min

    TRIGGER WARNING: This film contains scenes depicting homophobia and violence, which may be disturbing to some viewers.

    Someone Like Me follows the parallel journeys of Drake, a gay asylum seeker from Uganda, and a group of strangers from Vancouver’s queer community who are tasked with supporting his resettlement in Canada. Together, they embark on a year-long quest for personal freedom, revealing how in a world where one must constantly fight for the right to exist, survival itself becomes a victory.

  • Unarchived
    2022|1 h 24 min

    In community archives across British Columbia, local knowledge keepers are hand-fashioning a more inclusive history. Through a collage of personal interviews, archival footage and deeply rooted memories, the past, present and future come together, fighting for a space where everyone is seen and everyone belongs. History is what we all make of it.

  • Woman Dress
    2019|6 min

    Avant la colonisation européenne, une personne bispirituelle qu’on appelait Woman Dress sillonnait les Prairies, recueillant et racontant des récits. Le film s’appuie sur des images d’archives et sur des reconstitutions historiques pour nous transmettre cette histoire issue de la tradition orale de la famille Cuthand. Il rend hommage à Woman Dress et respecte son identité de genre en évitant d’imposer la binarité coloniale.

  • Michel Marc Bouchard: Speaking Out
    2023|5 min

    A window onto the world of a theatre giant, and an opportunity to discover the man behind the words. Michel Marc Bouchard discusses his youth and talks candidly about what has motivated him over the years to speak out and share his concerns, which resonate here at home and across the globe.

  • Love, Scott
    2018|1 h 16 min

    While walking on the street one night in a small town in Canada, Scott Jones, a gay musician, is attacked and paralyzed from the waist down; what follows is a brave and fragile journey of healing and the transformation of a young man’s life. From the first raw moments in the hospital to a disquieting trip back to the place he was attacked, Scott is constantly faced with the choice of losing himself in waves of grief or embracing love over fear. Filmed over three years by Scott’s close friend, Love, Scott is an intimate and visually evocative window into queer experience, set against a stunning score by Sigur Rós.

  • I Like Girls
    2016|8 min

    In this animated short from Diane Obomsawin, four women reveal the nitty-gritty about their first loves, sharing funny and intimate tales of one-sided infatuation, mutual attraction, erotic moments, and fumbling attempts at sexual expression. For them, discovering that they're attracted to other women comes hand-in-hand with a deeper understanding of their personal identity and a joyful new self-awareness.

    Love this film? Bring it home with you with its’official merchandise!

  • First Stories - Two Spirited

    This short documentary presents the empowering story of Rodney "Geeyo" Poucette's struggle against prejudice in the Indigenous community as a two-spirited person (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender). First Stories is an emerging filmmaker program for Indigenous youth which produced 3 separate collections of short films from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Produced in association with CBC, APTN, SCN, SaskFilm and MANITOBA FILM & SOUND.

  • Deep Inside Clint Star
    1998|1 h 28 min

    Take a hilarious and bittersweet journey into the hearts and minds of some very ordinary, extraordinary young Canadians with this feature-length documentary. The filmmaker, assuming the role of Clint Star, seeks out his far-flung buddies, young Indigenous people like himself. They talk about sex and life, love and abuse, and 500 years of oppression—all with humour, grace and courage.

  • Cure for Love

    Cure for Love is a full-length documentary about a controversial evangelical movement that purports to convert gay people into heterosexuals. The film brings us inside this unusual Christian subculture and follows the lives of several young people whose homosexuality is at odds with their religious beliefs.

  • Last Chance
    2012|1 h 24 min

    This feature documentary tells the stories of 5 asylum seekers who flee their native countries to escape homophobic violence. They face hurdles integrating into Canada, fear deportation and anxiously await a decision that will change their lives forever.

  • Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives
    1992|1 h 24 min

    This film contains scenes of nudity and/or sexuality. Viewer discretion is advised.

    This feature documentary delves into the rich history of Canadian queer women’s experiences in the mid-20th century. Compelling, often hilarious and always rebellious, the women interviewed in this film recount stories about their search for the places where openly gay women gathered in urban centres. Contemporary interviews, archival footage, and a stylized fictional narrative based on the pulp novels of the 1950s are woven throughout this simultaneously funny, heartbreaking, and empowering film. Forbidden Love brings an important and empowering history of lesbian sexuality in Canada out of the closet.

  • A Short Film About Tegan & Sara
    2018|4 min

    In this joyful portrait, filmmaker Ann Marie Fleming animates the formative days and musical career of Calgary-born identical twins Tegan and Sara Quin. Their remarkable journey over the past 20 years has often intersected with notions of identity—as artists, as individuals, as sisters, as queer women, and as leading activists in the LGBTQ community. Their musical progression parallels and amplifies their commitment to bringing the marginal to the mainstream.