Festival reels out the best in queer film

Posted Jan 12, 2012 By Kristen Coughlar

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EMC Entertainment - Prepare to travel the world later this month with Kingston's queer film and video festivalReelout.

This year, the festival, which runs Thursday, Jan. 26 to Sunday, Feb. 5 at the Screening Room, will celebrate its 13th year with 88 films and video featured throughout the 11-day festival.

"It's truly an international showcase," said Reelout festival and programming director Matt Salton. "This year we decided that in addition to our focus on camp we would highlight the best international feature films. There's less of a focus on documentaries this year, and a greater focus on foreign narratives, both shorts and features."

Salton said the festival was able to broaden its programming scope this year after traveling to the Cannes Film Festival last spring and connecting with other festival organizers and filmmakers.

"One of those films is called Jitters, and it's from Iceland...It's almost like a gritty John Hughes film. There's a lot of humor and on the nose portrayal of youth, but it's done in a way that is never patronizing to the young characters. I felt like, as far as I can tell anyway, that it accurately depicts the angst that today's youth is experiencing."

In addition to the film from Iceland, the festival will also showcase films and video from Sweden, Spain, Australia, France and Iran, to name a few.

"I think there are 50 different countries represented," Salton said.

Genre wise, the film and video fall into a variety of categories, from romantic comedies and dramas to documentaries and biopics.

In addition to the festival's international focus, Salton revealed that it will also explore "camp" in queer film.

Salton said that the definition of camp is best described in Susan Sontag's 1964 essay, Notes on Camp.

"She has a series of numerical notes on defining camp, and one of her main theories is that pure camp is unintentional...Showgirls would be an example of pure camp because filmmakers didn't realize when they were making it how bad it was. So the audience gets pleasure from the absurdity of something that is taking itself seriously."

Reelout's exploration of camp will focus on intentional camp.

"A lot of queer films are intentionally campy because it's such a common sensibility in queer life...It think if we were to explore pure camp filmmakers would not be very happy with us, knowing that we actually think their movies are pretty bad."

Among the festival's shorts program is a favourite of Salton's, 2012: The End is Queer.

"It's eight short films with an apocalyptic theme...So there's a zombie musical, there's gay space explorers and drag queen astronauts."

On a whole, Salton said he believes that this year's festival lineup is the strongest that Kingston has seen from Reelout.

"2011 was such a fantastic year for queer film...Many of the films that we're showing won audience awards in mainstream festivals like Sundance and South by Southwest, and a lot of the films have gotten As in Entertainment Weekly."

Membership renewals, new memberships and festival passes can be purchased at Reelout Arts Project Inc. at 336A Barrie Street from Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. - 5p.m.(Cash only. Individual general admission tickets can be purchased at Novel Idea, 156 Princess St. from Monday to Saturday, 9:30 a.m. - 9 p.m., Sunday, 12 p.m. -5 p.m. Festival passes are $109 for non-members and $69 for members. General admission tickets are $10 or $9 for members.

The festival will kick off with an opening galatickets $15 for non-members and $14 for memberson Friday, Jan. 27 featuring the film Cloudburst. Director Thom Fitzgerald will be in attendance.

"We're really excited to have Thom at the festival. He's made some great movies like the Hanging Garden, The Event, and Three Needles. He's pretty awesome," Salton said.

For more information, including a full festival lineup, visit www. reelout.com.

kcoughlar@perfprint.ca




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