Tag Archives: CUFF.Docs

The Librarians at CUFF.Docs

The 13th edition of CUFF.Docs runs from November 19th to 23rd, 2025, and their documentary presentation of The Librarians couldn’t be more timely. The award-winning film explores book banning in the United States, where Librarians have emerged as unexpected superheroes fighting against censorship and discrimination.

Still from The Librarians

Our provincial government banned four books this past summer on the flimsiest of grounds (please see my review of the banned & fantastic graphic novel, Fun Home). Notably, the local advocates of book banning and the titles they target are deeply influenced by this import of White Christian Nationalism. They also tried to influence the recent school board elections in Calgary; fortunately, they were unsuccessful.

The Alberta premiere of The Librarians screens Sunday, November 23rd at 11 AM at the Globe Cinema.

“Equal parts foreboding and inspiring, recently christened Oscar-nominee director Kim Snyder’s The Librarians, reaffirms why the vocation of librarians is a vital one, particularly in an age of rampant misinformation and censorship by the country’s most conservative and insecure. Spotlighting librarians who are at the center of book bans–in places like Texas and Florida–the film highlights how they join together and support each other while politicians are there to criminalize librarians’ work.” – Roger Ebert

Watch the trailer below! See you at the movies.

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Flashback at CUFF.Docs

The Calgary Underground Film Festival loves queer history! This year, their documentary festival running November 20-24, is featuring the Canadian Premiere of Flashback about the legendary gay bar in Edmonton that existed between 1974 and 1991.

Flashback is the story of a defiant disco dance culture of sweat and sex and drugs and fashion. Despite community hostility to queer people, Flashback became a sensation on the international club circuit facing police raids, threats of violence and the scourge of AIDS. Flashback is a ghost. However, it comes alive again in the memories of the people who were there and the legends they left behind.

Cool kids in the feature documentary Flashback

In Calgary, the Parkside Continental was the analog of Edmonton’s Flashback—they are of the same vintage—and there was frequent to-ing and fro-ing between the two cities for those looking to dance with a different crowd.

Flashback features more than 30 interviews recounting the story of the beloved gay bar: a tribute to a place where young people could just be themselves. A soundtrack with two new disco recordings (recorded at Calgary’s National Music Centre) and archival photographs and footage takes us back inside the famous venue and blends with re-enactments shot with today’s club kids in Edmonton’s last remaining gay bar, Evolution Wonderlounge.

All this is framed by the rediscovery, restoration and resurrection of the club’s iconic neon sign. The blue glow of the old Flashback sign now shines from a wall of the Neon Sign Museum in Edmonton, and its journey to restored glory is documented in the film. Flashback is a TELUS original feature documentary film shot in Edmonton, Alberta.

The Calgary Gay History Project is pleased to be a community partner for the screening. Learn more about our Province’s queer history and join us for Flashback on Saturday, November 23, with Calgary director Peter Hays in attendance!

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History gives us company

Thanks to everyone who came out to the queer history presentation last night at the Memorial Park Library. Kevin concluded his talk with a quote from Timothy Snyder’s profound book On Tyranny.

History allows us to see patterns and make judgements. It sketches for us the structures within which we can seek freedom. It reveals moments, each one of them different, none entirely unique. To understand one moment is to see the possibility of another. History permits us to be responsible: not for everything, but for something. The Polish poet Czesław Miłosz thought that such a notion of responsibility worked against loneliness and indifference. History gives us the company of those who have done and suffered more than we have.

—Timothy Snyder

To that end, this Sunday at 8:30 PM, see Queendom at CUFF.Docs. The documentary is about Gena Marvin, a contemporary queer artist from a small town in Russia. Gena stages radical public performances—in a nation hostile to queers—that becomes a new form of art and activism.

Let’s give Gena some company in Calgary.

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