Tag Archives: Fairy Tales Film Festival

Back in the Saddle

Posted on November 27, 2014 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

We are back to regular posting after a hiatus with Kevin running the municipal elections in Fernie, BC. It seems it is post-secondary week at the Calgary Gay History Project with research and presentations at SAIT, Mount Royal and U of C.

Today there is a public presentation at 12:30 PM with the Pride Centre at Mount Royal University. Everyone is welcome.

A special thanks this week, to Gene Rodman, a former CJSW DJ, who donated some of his personal papers to our archives along with his cassette collection of CGAY91 and Freedom FM shows he did with colleague Craig Lewington in the mid-90s.

Also thank you to Neil McMullen, who we interviewed this week, and took notes on his recollections of Calgary’s former Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) that existed in the 80s.

Finally, catch if you can the Calgary Cinematheque and Fairy Tales’ presentation of Portrait of Jason (from 1967) tonight at the Plaza Theatre, 7 PM.

{KA}

Pink Dollars fund Film Fest (ca. 2000)

Posted on May 30, 2014 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

The Calgary Queer History Project is staying with the Fairy Tales Film Fest theme, as you still have two days of Festival offerings to attend!

In the festival’s early years, ticket sales and sponsorships funded the completely volunteer run event. This was done in large part to avoid the drama of homophobia in public arts funding that had been happening throughout Alberta in the 1990s.

Queer cultural programming deserves the access to the same funding sources as every other cultural event – something that seems self-evident now. However, as recently as 14 years ago, there was still a strong censoring aspect in the community. The offended tax-payer argument is a perennial one, if you consider the recent drama about funding public art in Calgary. The basis of which is: if I personally do not like an artwork it should not be funded.

We are happy to report in 2014, Fairy Tales received public support from all three levels of government. The below editorial by Calgary Sun columnist, Rick Bell, on June 16th, 2000 gives one the tenor at the latest fin de siècle.

Thank you everyone who support us in the recent Telus StoryHive competition. Although we did not make it to the final 10 – we were close – we received a lot of positive feedback and regard for the project going forward. Stay tuned.

[KA]

Fairy Tales at 16 – Queer Films Saved Us!

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

The Fairy Tales Queer Film Festival starts tonight at the Plaza Theatre. It is one of my favourite times of the year!

In June 1999, this cultural institution began in Calgary, then called the Fairy Tales Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. It opened for two nights in the Garry Theatre in Inglewood (no longer a theatre, but a live music venue). There were sell out crowds as well as lots of excitement on those two sweltering summer evenings – in a venue with no air conditioning! Movie goers, fanned themselves with programs, drank cool beverages and managed to sweat buckets with no complaints: a sort-of cinematic sauna experience…

Fairytales Founders: Trevor Alberts, Kelly Langgard and Kevin Allen (from L. to R.)

Fairytales Founders (1999): Trevor Alberts, Kelly Langgard and Kevin Allen.

Seeing ourselves represented on the big screen for sixteen years now has been nothing short of alchemy for me personally. After a week of watching queer film (I am a pretty hard core festival goer), I am always disoriented to find the outside world as straight as it is.

However, it is the documentaries I have seen at Fairy Tales that have stayed with me the longest. My short list includes:

Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement (whose protagonist Edith Windsor later brought down the U.S Defense of Marriage Act last summer at age 84).

Call Me Kuchu (last year’s Fairy Tales Centrepiece Gala, about Ugandan gay-rights activist David Kato, which devastated me for days).

Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride (following Vancouver’s Pride Parade Director travel to other pride demonstrations around the world – including Russia – which spontaneously got a standing ovation in the cinema afterwards!)

United in Anger: The History of Act Up (a stunning look at how AIDS activists fighting under the highest stakes, changed the world).

Every year the programming team at Fairy Tales combs through hundreds of submissions, to select the festival’s annual line-up. I am sure there are more memorable films to be seen this week at Festival #16 – check them out!