Pride We Like

PRIDE WE LIKE

Hi folks!

It’s Mercy and Ned from Films We Like, bringing you monthly movie recs. Not sure how to celebrate Pride Month in the pandemic? We’ve got the answer!

To mark the occasion of Pride Month 2021, Films We Like has curated a collection of seven films from our catalogue that highlight the LGBTQ2SIA community. The series features films from a range of genres, anda variety of cultures and locales, all connected by their focus on queer and trans narratives. From Canadiana to NYC’s art scene, from revenge thrillers to charming biopics, Films We Like’s Pride Pics embody the range and diversity of queer cinema, while giving audiences the chance to see truly great films.

Throughout the month, we will spotlight each of these titles, shining a light on their compelling stories and unique characters. Experience love, passion, art and the wondrous world of The Moomins in Zaida Bergroth’s newest film, Tove. Participate in a monumental moment in history centred on the overturning of California’s ban on same-sex marriage in Ben Cotner and Ryan White’s The Case Against 8. Get lost in the wilderness of the Canadian shield in Ingrid Veninger’s coming of age love story Porcupine Lake. For a more exciting thriller, we have Vic + Flo Saw a Bear. Immerse yourself in the world of Jackie Curtis, Andy Warhol’s gender-fluid muse, in Craig Highberger’s Superstar in a Housedress. Rock n’ roll with Peaches’ anti jukeboxrock-opera, Peaches Does Herself. Lastly, watch a love story that combines art, gender and transformation in The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye.

Join Films We Like in celebrating Pride Month with great LGBTQ2SIA cinema!

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coMING THIS JULY…

special feature: TOVE

Helsinki, 1945. The end of the war brings a new sense of artistic and social freedom for painter Tove Jansson. Modern art, dizzying parties and an open relationship with a married politician: Her unconventional life puts her at odds with her sculptor father’s strict ideals. Tove’s desire for liberty is put to the test when she meets theatre director Vivica Bandler. Her love for Vivica is electric and all-consuming but Tove begins to realise that the love she truly yearns has to be reciprocated.

As she struggles with her personal life, her creative endeavours take her in an unexpected direction. While focusing her artistic dreams on her painting, the work that started as a side project, the melancholic, haunting tales she told scared children in bomb shelters, rapidly takes on a life of its own. The exploits of the Moomins, infused with inspiration from her own life, bring Tove international fame and financial freedom. There’s a daily comic strip, a stage play and stories that continue to delight people around the world. But as she begins to find her artistic identity she has to learn to find herself. Her unrequited love for Vivica is preventing her true liberty and only by learning to break away from her can she truly be free. TOVE is a captivating drama about the creative energy of an iconic talent and her turbulent search for identity, desire and freedom.

Coming July 2 to virtual and in-person theatres all over Canada.

Preorder on Vimeo on demand

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MORE PICS FOR PRIDE…

The Case Against 8

Battles are won because we fight them. 

A behind-the-scenes look inside the historic case to overturn California's ban on same-sex marriage. The high-profile trial first makes headlines with the unlikely pairing of Ted Olson and David Boies, political foes who last faced off as opposing attorneys in Bush v. Gore. The film also follows the plaintiffs, two gay couples who find their families at the center of the same-sex marriage controversy. Five years in the making, this is the story of how they took the first federal marriage equality lawsuit to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Watch via Amazon Prime Video

Watch via Vimeo on Demand

Watch via Apple TV

Watch via Kanopy

Porcupine Lake

During a hot and hazy summertime in northern Ontario, 13-year-old Bea (Charlotte Salisbury) wants a best friend more than anything else, but when she meets boisterous Kate (Lucinda Armstrong Hall), she gets more than she imagined. A story of bravery, small-town summer love, and the secret world of girls.

Watch via Apple TV

Watch via Amazon Prime Video

Watch via Kanopy

Vic + Flo Saw A Bear

Victoria, an ex-convict in her sixties, wants to start new life in a remote sugar shack. Under the supervision of Guillaume, a young, sympathetic parole officer, she tries to get her life back on track along with Florence, her former cellmate with whom she shared years of intimacy in prison. Stalked by ghosts of the past, their new life together is unexpectedly jeopardized.

Watch via Apple TV

Watch via Hoopla Digital

Superstar in a Housedress

Superstar in a Housedress examines the life and legend of Warhol superstar Jackie Curtis who was a poet, playwright, performer, and one of the great personalities of her time.

The film features on-camera interviews with actor Harvey Fierstein who played Jackie ’s mother in “Americka Cleopatra” when she was 18, Ellen Stewart, founder of LaMama Experimental Theater Club, John Vaccarro, founder of the Playhouse of the Ridiculous, Paul Morrissey, director of the Andy Warhol films and surviving superstars Holly Woodlawn and Joe Dallesandro, plus 24 other friends and colleagues of Jackie’s.

Watch via Apple TV

Watch via Kanopy

Peaches Does Herself

You came to see a rock show...

Following the advice of a 65 year old stripper, Peaches makes music that is sexually forthright. Her popularity grows and she becomes what her fans expect her to be — transsexual. She soon falls in love with a beautiful “she male”, but Peaches gets her heart broken and has to realize who she really is. 

Described as an anti jukebox musical or the jukebox musical that got a sex change.

Peaches wrote, directed, and played the role of Peaches, herself.

Watch via Apple TV

Watch via Vimeo on Demand

The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye

Genesis P-Orridge has been one of the most innovative and influential figures in music and fine art for the last 30 years. A link between the pre-and post-punk eras, they are the founder of the legendary groups COUM Transmissions (1969-1976), Throbbing Gristle (1975-1981), and Psychic TV (1981 to present), all of which merged performance art with rock music. Celebrated by critics and art historians as a progenitor of "industrial music", their innovations have transformed the character of rock and electronic music while their prodigious efforts to expand the boundaries of live performance have radically altered the way people experience sound in a concert setting. 

But that's just the preamble to the story. Defying artistic boundaries, Genesis has re-defined their art as a challenge to the limits of biology. In 2000, Genesis began a series of sex reassignment surgeries in order to more closely resemble their love, Lady Jaye (nee Jacqueline Breyer), who remained their wife and artistic partner for nearly 15 years. It was the ultimate act of devotion, and Genesis's most risky, ambitious, and subversive performance to date: “he” became a “she” in a triumphant act of artistic self-expression. Genesis called this project "Creating the Pandrogyne", an attempt to deconstruct two individual identities through the creation of an indivisible third. 

Watch via Apple TV

Tove

Helsinki, 1945. The end of the war brings a new sense of artistic and social freedom for painter Tove Jansson. Modern art, dizzying parties and an open relationship with a married politician: Her unconventional life puts her at odds with her sculptor father’s strict ideals. Tove’s desire for liberty is put to the test when she meets theatre director Vivica Bandler. Her love for Vivica is electric and all-consuming but Tove begins to realise that the love she truly yearns has to be reciprocated.

As she struggles with her personal life, her creative endeavours take her in an unexpected direction. While focusing her artistic dreams on her painting, the work that started as a side project, the melancholic, haunting tales she told scared children in bomb shelters, rapidly takes on a life of its own. The exploits of the Moomins, infused with inspiration from her own life, bring Tove international fame and financial freedom. There’s a daily comic strip, a stage play and stories that continue to delight people around the world. But as she begins to find her artistic identity she has to learn to find herself. Her unrequited love for Vivica is preventing her true liberty and only by learning to break away from her can she truly be free. TOVE is a captivating drama about the creative energy of an iconic talent and her turbulent search for identity, desire and freedom.

Coming July 2 to virtual and in-person theatres all over Canada.

Preorder on Vimeo on Demand

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About Films We Like
Founded by award-winning documentary filmmaker Ron Mann (Grass, Comic Book Confidential, Carmine Street Guitars) Films We Like is a boutique distributor of documentary, independent, and international films in Canada. Recent releases include About Endlessness, Dear Comrades!, and Kenny Scharf: When Worlds Collide.