Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Pride short-film showcase - 'It makes for a nice escape if people get a little Prided out' says Guerin



Pride short-film showcase ON SCREEN / 'It makes for a nice escape if people get a little Prided out' - Chris Dupuis / Toronto / Monday, June 25, 2012

If you love celebrating your gayness but can stand huge crowds and 30-plus temperatures for only so long, fear not! An island of cooling serenity awaits you, courtesy of the Canadian Media Guild. The organization’s first ever Pride Week LGBT Short Film Showcase features a collection of works screening daily over Pride week. The films play on a continuous loop, so viewers can drop by whenever it suits them, to get their dose of celluloid in air-conditioned comfort.

“Playing films for only one night can really limit audiences, especially during Pride Week because there is so much going on,” says programmer Matt Guerin. “Getting exposure for the works was as important as providing entertainment, so we wanted to make it as easy as possible for people to come by. It’s situated outside the Village, so it makes for a nice escape if people get a little Prided out.”

Guerin is a filmmaker who also works as a media librarian at CBC. He has brought together a diverse selection of films, including documentaries, animations, comedies and a few tearjerkers. Mostly Canadian, with a handful of international works, the event has something to suit every taste.

Rising star Jordan Tannahill’s Swim (which took home Inside Out’s Emerging Canadian Artist Award last year) will be featured. Based on the artist’s experience of losing a boyhood friend in a dare gone wrong, the piece attempts to relive the original tragedy, 20 years later.

“It’s only three minutes long, but it packs an emotional punch you rarely see in mainstream filmmaking,” Guerin says. “It’s an experimental work but still very accessible and quite beautiful to watch.”

Also on the bill is Mark Pariselli’s After, a dialogue-free exploration of three young gay guys’ fascination with a football-playing jock. Sexy without being explicit, dreamy without being pretentious, this unconventional exploration of teenaged lust has screened at more than 40 international festivals since its debut two years ago.

The program also features plenty of lighter works, including Betsy Kalin’s hilarious Chained! (a documentary chronicling the lesbian community’s fascination with wallet chains) and Christine Chew’s Slow Burn (a Western-infused comedy in which duelling tattoo artists battle for the chance to ink a mysterious girl for her first time).

Bunny is a film about an older gay couple struggling with Alzheimer's. Fresh off this year’s Inside Out program is local boy Seth Poulin’s heart-wrenching Bunny, about an older gay couple struggling with Alzheimer’s.

“I’ve never seen this kind of story told before anywhere,” Guerin says. “Most films aimed at gay audiences depend on young, good-looking guys as part of their selling point. For a filmmaker to tackle this kind of relationship is really daring.”

While short films rarely get exposure outside of festivals, Guerin insists they’re de rigueur viewing for anyone claiming cinephile status.

“Most filmmakers start out making shorts as they develop their abilities and get their name out there,” he says. “There’s an incredible array of talent on display here that you wouldn’t usually be able to see anywhere else. It’s a chance to see the future stars of cinema in the early stages of their career.”

The Deets:
2012 Pride Week LGBT Short Film Showcase Mon, June 25 to Fri, June 29, from 9am to 7pm all week Graham Spry Theatre
CBC Broadcasting Centre 250 Front St W Free 416-591-5333

More info at the event’s Facebook page

Saturday, June 2, 2012

The ignorant words of Rev. John Yake and other Catholic leaders

I have been following the ongoing debate in Ontario over the McGuinty government's attempts to address rampant bullying in Ontario's public schools.

I support the recent amendment to Bill 13 which gives high school students the right to use the name, 'Gay-Straight Alliance,' in school club titles should they choose to form such a group.

I went to a Catholic high school in the late 1980s. I wish I had had the chance to form or be a part of such a group. It would've made my high school experience safer. Just having the group in a school would make that school a safer place for LGBT youth, most if not all of whom are experiencing massive stress and isolation due to their sexual orientation (on top of the regular stress of being a teenager). Everyone who made it through adolescence should be able to understand that.

I am particularly disgusted with those who are using this issue to once again bash the LGBT community and denigrate our needs as irrelevant and worthy of neglect. Michael Coren once again buries his head in the sand on this issue, claiming that powerful church leaders (the type who in years past saw no problem protecting child rapists from the law) are now being bullied by the big, bad gay lobby and that gay kids aren't really victims of much bullying.

Coren writes in this column: "First, the dishonesty of the premise that gay children are bullied. Some are, of course, but there is no objective study concluding gays are targeted. Body image is the major reason for bullying and figures that indicate otherwise tend to come from gay organizations."

Of course, being gay organizations, Coren assumes that they can't be telling the truth? Coren is such an asshole and a bigot. You want objective proof of homophobia in schools? Just walk down any high school hallway and listen. When teachers aren't around, I guarantee you will hear some bully use the term 'fag' or 'faggot' in a hateful way within a few minutes. Sure body image is another major reason for bullying in schools. What is the insult of choice against fat kids? 'Fat faggot,' probably. Coren would focus on the attack against the kid's body image, but ignore the second part as irrelevant.

In truth, the vast majority of kids who are attacked using homophobic language in schools are in fact straight. Hence, the reasoning behind the establishment of Gay-Straight Alliances in the first place.

Privileged, inward-looking, ignorant, powerful people in the Catholic school boards and elsewhere like Coren are leading the charge against any recognition of gay abuse in our schools. They don't care about gay kids. They shrug as gay kids continue to contemplate suicide to escape the hell these boards have created for them. And they fight tooth and nail to keep the hatred in our schools unchallenged.

Shame.

When reading some letters to the editor on this subject in the National Post,
I came across this ignorant letter from Reverend John Yake of Toronto which clearly points out the ignorance of those who are fighting Bill 13. As we know, gay kids are generally in the closet in high school. They don't feel safe coming out or even raising the issue of being gay for fear of attack, ridicule and further social isolation. Considering this truth, give Rev. Yake's words a look:

"There has been lots of hype over Ontario’s Bill 13, a measure to address bullying based on sexual orientation, but is this really a problem? I recently retired from a 33-year career in teaching where my role as chaplain involved listening to and counselling students. A support group program emerged where issues could be discussed if they were experienced by a number of students. Topics discussed ranged from bereavement, chronic illness, drug and alcohol abuse, families of divorced/separated parents and stress. In my 33 years, the issue of bullying based on sexual orientation never was raised. So what’s this really about? Might the real issue behind Bill 13 be the advancement of an anti-Catholic agenda, a strategy to undermine Christian values under the guise of protecting children? This suggestion sickens me not only because it unfairly uses people’s perceived pain to advance an ideology of hate but also because it is singularly unCanadian especially when exercised by a legitimately elected government that is obliged to guard rights of freedom of religion.
Rev. John Yake, Toronto."


For a former educator in the Catholic system, Rev. Yake displays a horrifying amount of ignorance on the subject he chooses to write and publish. Had I been a kid stuck in Rev. Yake's classroom or support group, I wouldn't have raised my issues of isolation and pain over my sexual orientation with him either. It's this disgusting Catholic ignorance which remains a thorn in the side of all of us who have survived this religion and this school system.

I want to commend Joanne Chianello for this great piece in the Ottawa Citizen this week on this subject. Her thoughts reflect many of my own as a lapsed Catholic.

If one good thing has come out of this debate (besides focusing the public on the issue of bullying in schools and, in particular, the massive vulnerability of LGBT youth in our schools), it has re-awoken the issue of public funding for Catholic schools in Ontario, reminding many of us how archaic Ontario truly is. We must end funding for Catholic schools now and unite the two systems into one, publicly funded, secular system. I wrote about one strategy for how the government could win a mandate to pursue this just path some months ago. I truly hope someone in the McGuinty government is listening and willing to end this historic injustice sooner rather than never.

UPDATE: Here's another lovely article from today's Globe by Tabatha Southey.