GNDS 125 – Group 4 Tutorial 05

Maddy Ziedenberg, Sarah Nirenberg, and Lucas Schaffer-Wood

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Welcome to our blog!

As part of our GNDS 125 course at Queen’s University, we had the privilege of attending Kingston’s Reelout Film Festival. Reelout is a queer film and video festival that takes place at the Screening Room, a local independent cinema theatre. Reelout sparks conversations about sensitive topics like sexuality, race, class, gender, religion, and so much more, that otherwise would not be talked about. The festival brings together people from the larger Kingston area and the queer community to celebrate queer film and other media. Reelout is a special organization, unlike most others, as their content is produced, directed, and written by queer-identifying individuals, as well as starring individuals who can identify with the characters they play. By doing this, the non-profit organization allows for true representation in the content they produce, which is one of the main reasons why Kingston’s queer film and video festival attracts thousands of people every year. 

Our group viewed the films titled, The Garden Left Behind, and Queering The Script. Overall, we really enjoyed our experience at Reelout. The films we viewed gave us new insight into issues and concepts that go beyond the learning that could be done in lectures or tutorials. The experience of going to a small, local theatre was very different than attending a movie at a mainstream location. The Screening room felt much more intimate as the theatre was small, and we were also in the presence of the sponsors and supporters of Reelout Film Festival. All these factors combined to make the films seem even more meaningful, as it allowed us, the audience, to witness the immense impact the films had on everyone in attendance, regardless of why they were there or how they related to the topics being displayed. Although our original reason for attending this film festival was merely for a class project, this ended up to be a very enjoyable and impactful experience, beyond what we could have expected.

Although the two films we saw followed different formats and storylines, they both had the same underlying message. Both films explored the importance of diversity and intersectionality’s role in queer activism, and how it is crucial to recognize people’s privileges and oppressions in assessments of their identity. Intersectionality is a framework for discussing how different positions that people hold intersect to create challenges in their lives. Some of these roles that our films touched upon were sexuality, transsexual/gendered class, immigration, and gender. 

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