DARC’s Big Gay Screening

The year is 1997 and the graduating class of Smitty Crest High School is celebrating with a game of seven minutes in heaven. After being paired together, teens Ryan and Ian begin to question each other’s intentions in the closet. Once they both come to the realization that neither wants to kiss the other, they use humour and 90’s nostalgia to get to the bottom of each other’s sexualities.

Mia wakes up one morning discovering that she is gay, so she decides to tell her boyfriend, close friends, and family about her sexual orientation through a coming-out party that she throws at her home.

In Handmade Mountain, Michèle Pearson Clarke explores the emotional fallout of being both early to gay marriage and early to gay divorce. Fifteen years after same-sex marriage became legal, she and friends reflect on its personal and political meaning in this experimental film. The film is provided courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada.

In this animated short from Diane Obomsawin, four women reveal the nitty-gritty about their first loves, sharing funny and intimate tales of one-sided infatuation, mutual attraction, erotic moments, and fumbling attempts at sexual expression. For them, discovering that they’re attracted to other women comes hand-in-hand with a deeper understanding of their personal identity and a joyful new self-awareness. The film is provided courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada.

This short documentary presents the empowering story of Rodney “Geeyo” Poucette’s struggle against prejudice in the Indigenous community as a two-spirited person (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender). First Stories is an emerging filmmaker program for Indigenous youth which produced 3 separate collections of short films from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. The film is provided courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada.

Luci gives her beloved nephew the Christmas gift of his dreams: a beautiful sequinned dress. But when he tries to show the rest of the family, Luci finds herself enacting the very restrictions and shaming she hopes to protect him from.

In 2023, Tatum graduated from Algonquin College’s Film and Media Production program. During film school, at only 17 years old, Tatum was offered her first option agreement for an original film idea. Throughout film school, they practiced every role on set while filming shorts with classmates. She is DARC’S 2024 Fall Media Art Production Fund recipient. Their true passion in film is to write and direct with queer and/or female casts/crews. Identifying as a queer female filmmaker herself, queer and female led movies will always hold a special place in her heart. Their goal is to make films a more inclusive space for queer and female artists and to express herself in a way that is unfiltered and pioneering to other queer and female filmmakers and film lovers. Tatum is currently seeking funding to shoot her feature-length film in the Ottawa community.

Karolina Krym is a graduate of the Film & Media Production program at Algonquin College. While studying at Algonquin College, Karolina directed and produced the documentary Ottawa is a Drag, which premiered on PBS in December 2022 and streamed on CBC Gem. Since graduating, she has worked as 2nd AD on the Digi60 film Vintage, and as assistant to director Bryan Bertino for Paramount Pictures’ Vicious. Karolina has also instructed DARC’s Video Camp for Girls+ for the last couple of years.