2009 Queer Film Festival winners

I Can't Think Straight secures top prize


With the projectors for the 21st Vancouver Queer Film Festival now dark and the seats cool after 10 days of queer films Aug 13-23, the festival has announced this years winning films.

This years top prize, the $1,500 Audience Favourite Award for Best Feature, went to Shamim Sarif for I Cant Think Straight.

Its the tale of a British Indian girl dating a British guy and a headstrong Christian Palestinian in the midst of planning her wedding day. When the two women meet by chance and become fast friends, their lives are turned upside down. They find themselves questioning whether their undeniable attraction can co-exist with their traditions and conventions.

Sarif says that she wants to explore the fact that often we need to face up to certain aspects of ourselves and our beliefs in order to find true love.

The film also took Audience Choice for Best Feature Film at the 2009 Melbourne Queer Film Festival in Australia.

The $750 Hot Pink Shorts Award for best short film went to The Portside by award-winning Vancouver director Aerlyn Weissman and poet Daphne Marlatt.

The film is a historical drama that relives Vancouvers lesbian scene of the 1970s. Commissioned by the Queer History Project, The Portside is the third film in a series of creative collaborations that honours Vancouvers queer histories.

Nine years ago, the Film Classification Board tried to prevent Weissmans documentary, Little Sisters vs Big Brother from being screened at the 14th installment of the queer film festival in 2002, sparking outcry from the queer community. The film charted the bookstores two-decade battle against Canada Customs book seizures.

Naoko-San by local filmmaker Rika Moorhouse won the Gerry Brunet Memorial Award ($1500), a juried award honouring the best new short work by a BC artist. In Naoko-San, Moorhouse explores the blurred narrative of her mothers immigration story.

The Best International Feature ($500), a new festival award, was split between City of Borders and Soundless Wind Chime.

City of Borders, a co-production between Israel, Palestine and the US by Yun Suh, takes filmgoers into the heart of Jerusalem where a queer bar called Shushan stands as an unexpected symbol of unity. It portrays this vibrant underground sanctuary where people of opposing nationalities, religious affiliations and sexual orientations gather and create community under one roof.

 

Kit Huns Soundless Wind Chime (China and Switzerland) is a sophisticatedly fashioned Honk Kong love story of two men who meet after one of their lovers dies in an accident. Told through a series of flashbacks and fragments, this poetic drama avows that love is as much about memory as it is present-day reality.

Attendance at the festival has continued to increase over the years.

Were still awaiting a final attendance tally but overall feel really positive by the overwhelming level of engagement by our audience, says festival executive director Drew Dennis.

Read More About:
TV & Film, Culture, Vancouver, Arts, Media

Keep Reading

In “Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt,” Brontez Purnell balances on a knife edge between hilarity and despair

Purnell's new memoir turns heaviness into humour, and exposes the bleakness under what seems silly and light

‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Season 16, Episode 12 power ranking: Designing women

Who among our top five will fall short of the finale?

‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Season 16, Episode 12 recap: Bathroom babes

The infamous room design challenge returns, this time with … restrooms?

Bollywood flair quickens the tender heart of ‘The Queen of My Dreams’

Filmmaker Fawzia Mirza discusses her feature debut and how the intergenerational drama echoes much of her own life