QUEER CINEMA CLUB
Animation by Paul Twa
Queer Cinema Club is more than a film series: it’s a mission to bring Toronto’s LGBTQ folks together in celebration of some of the best queer cinema ever made.
Every month at the Paradise Theatre, curator and host Peter Knegt will be offering queers (and anyone who loves them) a classic queer film, special guests and performers, and some good old fashioned drinks and conversation in the Paradise’s lobby bar. Each film is paired with a different local queer artist, who designs an original poster for the screening (which will be available for purchase the night of the event).
Up next…
You may have heard of revered jazz musician Billy Tipton, who rose to fame in the 1940s and ‘50s, but it’s unlikely you know the whole story behind him. It’s actually quite possible that what you think you know about him is tainted with the vicious transphobia that was unleashed by the mainstream media after his death in 1989. Which is one of the many reasons you should come to our August 11th screening of Chase Joynt and Aisling Chin-Yee’s extraordinary documentary No Ordinary Man.
One of the best films — queer or otherwise — to come out during the peak of the pandemic, No Ordinary Man essentially reimagines Tipton’s narrative through a diverse group of contemporary trans performers and experts. Blending recordings, archival and present-day interviews, and the performers’ interpretations, the film provides a necessary dialogue about transmasculinity — something even the recent surge in trans representation and storytelling hasn’t done nearly enough of.
We are so excited to screen No Ordinary Man in a cinema, a place few have been able to see it since it was released when most of them were shuttered. We’re even more excited that many members of the cast and crew will be joining us in person for a Q&A, and that the great Chris E. Vargas made this wonderful poster for us (which will be available in print at the screening).
Tickets now available at paradiseonbloor.com. See you August 11th at 8pm 🎹🎹🎹
And then…
On August 20th, join us for an extraordinary film destined to become a beacon in the history of trans cinema: Isabel Sandoval’s Lingua Franca.
Released in the ill-fated summer of 2020 (when few of us were watching anything other than mind-numbing reality television), Lingua Franca does something no other film really ever has: it captures — with remarkable nuance and complexity — the anxieties of our current actual reality when it comes to both trans rights and Trump-era immigration policies.
Starring Sandoval herself as an undocumented trans Filipina immigrant who becomes romantically involved with the grandson of the elderly woman she is the caregiver for (played by the late great Lynn Cohen), Lingua Franca is a heartfelt, gripping film that announces Sandoval as a cinematic force. It’s also a movie that very much deserves to be seen in a theatre, and we are so excited to be giving you all that opportunity.
Thank you so much Simon Ip for creating this lovely poster, which will be available for sale at screening. See you all at the Paradise Theatre in a few weeks! Tickets available here.