image+nation, Montreal’s LBGTQ film festival celebrates thirty years of bringing global stories in film to the city. This year, 120 different films will be presented, coming from all around the world.
This year’s festival includes premieres such as B&B, Ma vie Avec James Dean, Embrasse Moi, Diaspora, and Jours de France, as well as Dome Karukoski’s Tom of Finland and Grace Jones:L Bloodlight and Bami.
Tom of Finland is about an officer who returns home after WWII but can not bring himself to submit to the social pressure to marry and have children. Instead, he begins to specialize in homoerotic drawings of muscular men, an act that helped launch a gay revolution in Europe.
The opening film, Call me by Your Name (dir. Luca Guadagnino and based on a screenplay by James Ivory) is about a 17-year-old boy whose summer is changed when an American grad student wakes him up to his homosexuality through their shared experience of the Italian landscape and Jewish heritage.
World wide offerings come from South and Central America. Take special note of Extra Terrestrials (dir. Carla Cavina) from Puerto Rico/Venuzuela about a woman who must tell her conservative family she is going to marry a woman. Another one to watch for is Nobody’s Watching (dir. Julia Solomonoff) from Argentina. about a famous actor from Buenos Aires who tries to balance life in New York. The entire program has a special focus on Latin cinema.
In addition, there will be some classic and pioneer films, such as Maurice about a homosexual relationship in the UK in the early 20th century when homosexulity was still taboo, and By Hook and By Crook, a queer buddy film about two friends who commit petty crimes while trying to understand themselves. It is well known for its representations of gender variance.
The closing film, God’s Own Country is about a Yorkshire man who learns to be gentle and soft through his interaction with Gheorghe, a Romanian.
image+nation runs from November 23 to December 3. Details about films and dates can be found HERE.
