Pride Projected: Celebrate Pride with three special events hosted by some of our favourite local queer film icons. We asked Saffron Maeve, Michelle Mama and Peter Knegt for some non-fiction queer cinema to share with audiences throughout Pride Month.
Series Promotional Partner: Inside Out
Peter Knegt, host of the monthly film series Queer Cinema Club and the Canadian Screen Award-winning talk show Here & Queer on CBC, selected Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s The Celluloid Closet:
“30 years ago, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman gave all of us fascinated by the intersection of film history and LGBTQ history an extraordinary gift in their documentary The Celluloid Closet. Covering a century of queer representation —for better and very much for worse — on the silver screen through footage of 120 films and interviews with everyone from Whoopi Goldberg to Harvey Fierstein to Gore Vidal (not to mention Lily Tomlin, who also serves as the film’s narrator), this film is perhaps one of the most entertaining history lessons ever put on screen. It’s also a tribute to the late, great activist and author Vito Russo, whose lectures, film clip presentations and 1981 book The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality at the Movies collectively made the movie possible.” – Peter Knegt on The Celluloid Closet
What That's Entertainment did for movie musicals, The Celluloid Closet does for Hollywood homosexuality, as this exuberant, eye-opening movie serves up a dazzling hundred-year history of the role of gay men and lesbians have had on the silver screen. Lily Tomlin narrates as Oscar-winning moviemaker Rob Epstein (The Times of Harvey Milk and Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt) and Jeffrey Friedman assemble fabulous footage from 120 films showing the changing face of cinema sexuality, from cruel stereotypes to covert love to the activist triumphs of the 1990s. Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon, Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Curtis, Harvey Fierstein and Gore Vidal are just a few of the many actors, writers and commentators who provide funny and insightful anecdotes.
The Celluloid Closet will be presented with a live introduction from Peter Knegt.
Peter Knegt is a writer, broadcaster and film curator. He currently hosts the Canadian Screen Award-winning talk show Here & Queer on CBC, and runs the monthly film series Queer Cinema Club at Toronto’s Paradise Theatre.
TICKETS (+HST)
General: $15
Members: $10, $8, FREE