All-Star 2015 edition of Montréal’s Image+Nation LGBT film festival

Image+Nation is Canada’s oldest LGBT film festival and will screen the best of queer cinema from around the world at its 28^th annual edition, at various Montréal venues from Nov. 26 to Dec. 6.

“Image+Nation is the first LGBT film festival in Canada and one of the oldest in the world,” says festival director Charlie Boudreau. “It stands as the premiere site to discover LGBT film in the city and plays a trendsetting role within the larger festival circuit in Canada, North America and internationally. Over three decades the festival has earned a reputation for itself as an event that brings together the best and brightest LGBT film from around the globe while at the same time hopefully providing a window onto our queer world.”

The opening film is the much-buzzed about American feature That’s Not Us by director William Sullivan, about three New York couples who pack whiskey-fueled card games, buzz-killing wisecracks and overdue emotional conversations into one end-of-the-season beach house vacation.

The closing film is Kiss Me Kill Me by director Casper Andreas and screenwriter David Michael Barrett. The West Hollywood murder mystery is filled with outrageous stereotypes and ludicrous plot twists, and co-stars Gale Harold (of Queer as Folk fame).

 Other highlights include: The Girl King, an international co-production about Sweden’s lesbian Queen Kristina; Those People, about the unrequited love of two young men in the wealthy world of Manhattan’s elite; the South African feature While You Weren’t Looking looks at the marriage of mixed-race couple Dez and Terri, and their daughter Asanda’s discovery of her own queer identity; and Where Are You Going, Habibi?, a German film with English subtitles about young “German-Turk” Ibrahim dealing with coming out amidst racial tensions.

“Our 2015 programming very much reflects Image+Nation’s vision that being an LGBT person makes one a citizen of the world and therefore part of the human fabric that is society,” says Boudreau. “This year’s films reflect our diversity, shared loves and shared humanity. This does not ignore the fact that being LGBT is still very dangerous in many countries of the world and problematic within many cultures and communities.”

This year’s festival will also screen many shorts, plus several festure-length documentaries, notably A Sinner in Mecca, about filmmaker Parvez Sharma’s journey on the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca; and Canadian filmmaker Malcolm Ingram’s superb doc Out to Win, chronicling the history of queer athletes, including Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King and David Kopay.

“We all need to see ourselves on the big screen,” Boudreau says. “There is power in seeing oneself up on that movie screen, made all the more solidifying and empowering in a nice dark cinema with a few hundred of ones friends, family, colleagues and queer allies of all stripes.”

Montréal’s 28^th annual Image+Nation LGBT film festival runs Nov. 26 to Dec. 6. For more information and tickets, visit image-nation.org.