The Flipside of Image+Nation, Fin

Nearly a week has passed since the end of Montreal’s LBGT film festival. What follows are my reminisces on the ten-day event as well as a summation of the awards announced during the closing ceremonies. And so I bid adieu to Image+Nation until XXII arrives next year.

Where to start? Anyone interested in organizing a film festival would do well to take part in one. Speaking to the organizers sporadically throughout the week, you soon learn that not all is fun and movies in the world of festivals. A hard year’s work of wrapping up last year’s 20th edition and collecting enough films to launch a 21st is a long, arduous and expensive process. While each distributor plays by different rules, long gone are the days when filmmakers approached festivals to get their movies shown. And while this may remain the case for Cannes or TIFF, what chance does a relatively small LBGT film festival in Montreal have? Somehow, the tide has changed. One has only to read the opening pages of the Image+Nation guide this year to understand the difficulty in even programming gay films: the distributors of Milk, the year’s gay film event starring Sean Penn and directed by Gus Van Sant, decided allying themselves with LBGT film festivals was not part of their marketing platform.

When procuring a film for your program costs anywhere from $500 to $1500 a shot, on top of costs of renting Cinema Imperial from the coordinators of the MWFF and advertising, the need for volunteers becomes clear. This is where Image+Nation seems to have it lucky. Over fifty people from within and without the gay community in Montreal came to lend a hand; whether it be to support their community, or to support film in general, or just (as in my case) to experience the festival culture. Despite this, a major hand goes out to the festival coordinators, festival director Charlie Boudreau & programming director Katharine Setzer, as well as the wonderful folk who coordinated the volunteer groups. While landing in the black or in the red rested in the hands of filmgoers for ten days, the administrative team kept their cool and went with the flow. While I’ll hardly know which side of the fence Image+Nation ended up on, especially as attendance was generally lower than in previous years, one can be sure that after twenty-one years, program XXII doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch.

Before listing the award-winners, I have a general interest inquiry: how is it that everyone, from the ages of about sixteen to seventy, seems to have a student card? Perhaps people have smartened up to the fact that the cost of taking one class each semester and having a student card pays off double in the student discounts one can receive. Hmmmm…

JURY PRIZE

• Feature Film: Dolls (Pusinky), directed by Karin Babinska (Czech Republic, 2007)
• Documentary Film: U People, directed by Olive Demetrus & Hanifah Walidah (USA, 2007)
• Short Film: The Lonely Lights. The Color of Lemons, directed by Benjamin M. Piety (USA, 2007)

AUDIENCE AWARDS

• Feature Film: Ciao, directed by Yen Tan (USA, 2008)
• Documentary Film: Be Like Others, directed by Tanaz Eshaghian (Iran, 2008)
• Short Film: Les Lapines, directed by Francoise Doherty & Mel Hogan (Canada, 2008)

20+20 Visionary Prizes

• Innovation and Creativity in Filmmaking: Bruce LaBruce, director
• Innovation and Creativity in Filmmaking: The Lost Coast, directed by Gabriel Fleming (USA, 2008)