FIVE@50
A unique collection of five-minute shorts reflecting on contemporary LGBTQ2+ lives and identities. When it comes to progress and queer culture, what have we gained in the last 50 years? And what have we lost along the way?
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Handmade MountainMichèle Pearson Clarke 2019 6 minIn 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.
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Woman DressTheo Jean Cuthand 2019 6 min
Pre-contact, a Two Spirit person named Woman Dress travels the Plains, gathering and sharing stories. Featuring archival images and dramatized re-enactments, this film shares a Cuthand family oral story, honouring and respecting Woman Dress without imposing colonial binaries on them.
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The BassinetTiffany Hsiung 2019 6 min
When a vintage bassinet appears at filmmaker Tiffany Hsiung and long-time fiancée Victoria Mata’s home, it sets off a chain reaction of emotions. The Bassinet is a gentle and affecting story about Tiffany’s personal struggle with the intersection of her sexual orientation and cultural identity, and the cross-generational burden of having a baby in the context of rigid social constructs of marriage and family.
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Reviving The RoostVivek Shraya 2019 6 min
Filmmaker and bestselling author Vivek Shraya’s ode to a popular Edmonton gay bar that closed in 2007. With pulsating neon-light animation, Reviving the Roost is a story about community complexity and longing, and an elegy to a lost space.
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The Hook UpMichael V. Smith 2019 6 min
The Hook Up is an experimental doc featuring four gay men from two different generations: two nearing age 70 and two 20-somethings. Striking close-up visuals create a powerful sense of intimacy and connection as the men discuss how hooking up has (and has not) evolved for gay men.
In 1969, Canada passed Bill C-150 into law, which partially decriminalized homosexuality in Canada.
Fifty years later, the NFB presents Five@50, a unique collection of five-minute shorts reflecting on contemporary LGBTQ2+ lives and identities. These intimate documentaries range from personal reflection to cultural history, and include experimental forms, animation and dramatization.
When it comes to progress and queer culture, what have we gained? And what have we lost along the way?
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producerJustine Pimlott
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executive producerAnita Lee
