By: Shannon Page
One of the great things about film festivals is their potential to showcase and foster emerging talent. The Toronto Inside Out LGBT Film Festival’s Local Heroes short film screening is aimed at drawing attention and giving space to local filmmakers. It’s a space where audiences can see what is being created in their own back yards, and where beginning filmmakers have the opportunity to see their work screened alongside more established artists.
Wylie Writes chatted with Kyle Reaume – an up-and-coming filmmaker who worked on Director Vice Racanelli’s short documentary What Makes Me a Woman – about the experience of screening their film at Inside Out and the importance of maintaining a space for local LGBT films and filmmakers.
“It actually started out as a Toronto Film School project,” Reaume explained. “Me and the Director, Vince Racanelli, were actually students together at Toronto Film School and for our third term we had to make a documentary. Vince knows a lot of people in the queer community here and he got in contact with Judy Virago, who’s a really well-known figure in our community, and he asked her if we could do a documentary about her.”
“The film came together so swiftly, it was a really smooth process, she [Judy] was fantastic to work with and she helped get me in touch with other people in the community. I’m actually new to Toronto, so it was a really eye-opening experience.”
“Knowing that it’s being screened at one of the most prominent queer film festivals in the world is an incredible feeling,” he said. “In Toronto, we have a really tight knit queer community, but it’s important that we get that larger exposure. Seeing it screened here alongside other people is just so rewarding because the connections that you make are invaluable.”
“At the end of the day, films like this deserve their own platform[…] I feel like I learned a lot tonight seeing the other films and it made me so incredibly proud to be screened alongside these other people. The more that we can work together, the more that we can get done. That’s one of the strongest parts of a festival like this, is bringing these people together because once we start working together we can go further into the mainstream.”
What Makes Me a Woman appeared in Inside Out’s annual showcase of locally produced short films alongside Regan Latimer’s lesbian comedy Lindy Calls Tracy; Monster Mash, a short horror flick directed by Mark Pariselli; Michèle Pearson Clarke’s All That Is Left Unsaid, a documentary about Audre Lorde; Bedding Andrew, a documentary by Blair Fukumura; Sonya Reynolds and Lauren Hortie’s documentary Midnight at the Continental; Bikini, an experimental film directed by Daniel McIntyre; and Director James Fanizza’s You Are Free, which follows an amateur drag queen’s struggle to save his failing bar. Fanizza’s film was the recipient of the Inside Out Harold Greenberg Fund Short to Feature Award.
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Click here for more festival details.
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Shannon Page: @ShannonEvePage
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