The cultural program is open to all and completely free of charge! The movies, conferences and workshops will take place at “Université du Québec à Montreal”, UQAM, Pavillon Sherbrooke, 200 Sherbrooke West.

Films
Movies and discussions.

It is much more enriching to discuss a film with its creator or director or with community groups. The story takes on a new meaning and the reality of the movie feels more alive. Every movie will be followed by a discussion with moderator.

Saturday May 24:
2:00 – 3:30
-- Mexican Refugees by Alex Flores, 35 min, Spanish subtitled in english. Five stories reveal the ironies between government policies, inadequate enforcement & international impunity. This film puts a human face on emigration, immigration & political asylum experiences.

Movie followed by a discussion on experiences and challenges of queer refugees from Latin America.
Spokespersons:

Alex Flores (Alexarte)

A Latin American Eco-feminist and social justice activist to the core is an independent visual artist and Film-maker, born in Mexico. Alex has worked in a variety of mediums: Acrylics, Wood, mosaics, and recyclable objects, she Graduated as a teacher in 1988, in Mexico City.
Alex moved to San Francisco California in 1989, where she learns carpentry, her furniture design has been showing in different galleries in Texas, San Francisco and Mexico City. Alex moved to Toronto Canada in the spring of 2001 and in 2003 she created Las Perlas del Mar Films Collective, a group of Hispanics that teach & produce films based on social and cultural issues. She is the Artistic Director of Las Perlas del Mar Films, she writes, directs and edit in the present time, Alex also teaches workshops in how produce a movie from start to finish.
Alex paintings have been shown in different galleries in Toronto and magazines front pages. Alex film & videos has been show in several International Film Festivals in Toronto, United States, Europe, Mexico and Asia.

Me Noël Saint-Pierre (Saint-Pierre Grenier)

As a Union Councilor, he started defending the powerless very early on:  Workers, immigrants, refugees, homosexuals, minority groups, people with Aids…
Some of the cases he treated are those of Clara Palacios; The contestation of the old 137 article of the Quebec Bill of human rights; The contestation of the practices of immigration agents towards Algerian citizens in 1996 and 1997; The case of the Chilean group threatened of expulsion in 1997 and 1998; The police repression of gay men and street youth; and the right to marriage between same-sex partners…
Me Noel Saint Pierre is a member of the committee on cultural communities of the Quebec Bar and is often solicited by the community groups,  educational or juridical, as a speaker.

3:30 – 4:30
-- Anyone and Everyone by Susan Polis Schutz, English, 57 minutes, 2007
Connected by having a son or daughter who is gay, parents across the country discuss their experiences in the documentary Anyone and Everyone. Filmmaker Susan Polis Schutz, depicts families from all walks of life. Individuals from such diverse backgrounds as Japanese, Bolivian, and Cherokee, as well as from various religious denominations such as Mormon, Jewish, Roman Catholic, Hindu, and Southern Baptist, share intimate accounts of how their children revealed their sexual orientation and discuss their responses.

The parents also talk about struggling with the pain of their sons and daughters dealing with not being accepted by relatives or friends, and being ostracized by religious congregations.

"It was so evil and so bad that we almost couldn’t talk about it... You just had the idea it was so terrible that it was unspeakable," said a Mormon mother in the film.

"Having heard all these awful things and what homosexuality was and then having a member of your family, a person that you have seen, a child that you have seen since the child was born, a person that was absolutely wholesome, good, kind, gentle and that put together with the word lesbian didn’t add up," said a hispanic mother.

This film is especially important since up to 26% of gay teens who come out to their parents or guardians are told they must leave home. Of the approximately 1.6 million homeless American youth, 20-40% identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Nearly 40% of LGBT (GLBT) students report being physically harassed. In a 2001 Department of Health study of youth in Massachusetts, about 40 percent of gay and lesbian students attempted suicide, compared to about 10 percent of their heterosexual peers.

The film also depicts meetings of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) where people get support and help.

Sunday the 25th of May:
10:00 - 11:30
--Dakan by Mohamad Camara, 90 min, French, Subtitles English. Dakan (Destiny) is a 1997 French/Guinean drama film written and directed by Mohamed Camara. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Telling the story of two young men struggling with their love for each other, it has been described as the first West African feature film to deal with homosexuality.

11:30 - 1:00
-- 68 pages Marked by pain, Bound by Hope by Sridhar Rangayan, 92 min, Hindi with English Subtitles. 68 PAGES is the story of Mansi, a counsellor whose ethics demand that she has to maintain confidentiality of her counselees. She has to be objective in understanding their problems and give them options that would help them come to terms with their status. She cannot get emotional about any person she is counselling.

But is it possible for a sensitive young woman to remain unaffected by the suffering that she witnesses around her? Mansi is after all human. She gives vent to true feelings by sharing it with her diary. Her pain and anguish are reflected only on the pages of her diary. There are some counselees whom she cannot leave behind in the counselling room. She carries their stories home and they become part of her diary.

It is through the pages of Mansi's diary that we see the stories of Paayal, Kiran, Nishit and Umrao, marginalised by the society, stigmatized for being themselves and not being able to find a place in the mainstream society. The film makes an effort to address issues of minority communities and their status as HIV positive people.

3:30 - 5:00
-- Invisible Son by Edward Lee, 11 min, English, Subtitles French, Canada 2005.
Lee takes viewers on an extremely personal journey and depicts his struggle to come to terms with his cultural heritage and sexuality. The documentary is filmed as a letter to his parents, in which Lee gives voice to his previously unspoken thoughts, emotions and experiences. Lee, who is currently attending University of Calgary as an undergraduate student, describes his piece as introspective and raw.
                       
-- Meditating Me by Alan Wong, 5 minutes, English. Alan Wong is the coordinator of Gay and Lesbian Asians of Montreal (GLAM) and Co-President of Coalition MultiMundo, which unites organizations focusing on issues of concern to sexually diverse ethnic and racialized minorities and Two-Spirited people in Montreal. He is also pursuing an interdisciplinary Ph.D. at Concordia University, researching diversity, citizenship, and identity in Canada.

   
-- Novela, Novela by Liz Miller, 30 minutes, Spanish Subtitles English.
Liz Miller is a documentary filmmaker, community media artist, and professor with an MFA in Electronic Arts from Renssellaer Polytechnic Insitute and an BA in Social Thought and Political Economics from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. For the last fifteen years, Miller has developed documentary and community media projects with youth, senior citizens and a wide range of human rights organizations.

Her 30-minute documentary, Novela, Novela, an inside look at Nicaragua’s most political and popular “social soap opera,” has been integrated into high school curricula and used by international coalitions working against violence and defending the rights of women, children and glbt populations. Miller has exhibited her work around the world and won awards from the International Association of Women in Radio and Film, Latin American Studies Association, and the National Educational Media Network. THE WATER FRONT is her most recent work and has already won two awards; the Ramsar Medwet Award at Ecofilms in Greece and the Environmental Award, Media that Matters.
Having lived in Central America for half a decade, Liz continues to conduct media workshops for women and human rights organizations across the Americas and internationally. She is currently a full time professor in the Communication Studies program at Concordia University in Montreal and a co-founder of the Concordia Documentary Center. Her newest project involves refugee youth in Montreal.