Posted by Wayves Volunteer 19/06/2013
By Hugo Dann, for Wayves.
OUTeast Film Festival launches its second season with a spectacular art installation at the site of Halifax’s iconic former gay bar, The Turret, in the Khyber Arts Centre. I have come to ask you to tell me everything you know about the night brings together three works by Canadian artist Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay: Legacy, Night Bird and a glittery performance piece that will transport the queer history of the room beyond its borders, onto to the streets. You can read more about the exhibit here.
Sparkly film lovers will move from the Turret up Sackville Street to Neptune Theatre, where the festival program opens with a 7:30 PM screening of I Am Divine, a documentary charting the legendary drag diva’s rise to infamy.
In a recent interview in a Massachusett’s newspaper, filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz described Divine as “a poster child for misspent youth.” He went on to tell the North Adams Transcript, “I feel like it's the right moment, it's in the national conversation. One of the reviews said it was sort of like an ‘It Gets Better' video on angel dust and I kind of agree with that, even though Divine wasn't really into angel dust.”
Divine's story, inseparable from the early career of the great John Waters, presents the long lost era of the underground film movement in the 1970s. Divine and Waters won their fame when it was a struggle to do so, when independent cinema hits relied on street cred and word-of-mouth more than marketing gurus and mainstram media movie critics.
Schwarz said. "The right people knew about these movies. The right people knew that if you show up at this theater at midnight, you're going to have an experience that you'll never forget. Divine became an underground superstar through that circuit."
It seems highly appropriate that OUTeast will open in The Turret, itself a powerful symbol of queer subversion and independence, and then pay homage to a diva whose very fame rested on her shattering every consumerist cliché of the movie star as goddess.
Following the screening of Iam Divine, OUTeast will honour a local legend with a Toast to Opening Night with Rosie Porter and Heavy Petting Halifax will continue the queer dance party in the Neptune Studio Theatre Lobby.
Click here to see the trailer for I Am Divine. Visit the OUTeast website for box office and ticket information and check out there full schedule of movies and parties here.
OUTeast BOX OFFICE/TICKET INFO
ONLINE
- Advance film ticket sales are online at neptunetheatre.com (credit card only)
- Click ‘Visiting Shows,’ and then click ‘OUTeast Film Festival.’
- Advance Prom and Brunch tickets are available at outeast2013.eventbrite.ca (credit card or Paypal only)
IN PERSON
- The Festival Box Office in the Neptune Studio Lobby opens one hour before screening start times during the festival.
- Advance tickets to the Prom and theBrunch (cash only) will be available at Venus Envy, 1598 Barrington Street. For store hours, visit venusenvy.ca/halifax.
TICKETS
- All festival screenings are $10 each, everything included.
- Tickets for the Prom are $15 each, everything included, and tickets for the Awards Brunch are $10 each.
- No refunds, exchanges, or cancellations on any tickets purchased.
- For ticket-related questions, email info@outeastfilm.com
