After COVID-19, Hamilton Queer Film Festival promises to tell stories with happy endings

After a year of suffering under COVID-19, the first ever Hamilton Queer Film Festival will celebrate this year, a growing collection of films that aren't about trauma.

It's time, guest judge Cheyenne Lynn says, for stories with some happy endings.

Lynn, who is non-binary, says "Everyone has collectively experienced a very traumatic year. I think they need that sort of push to be like 'all right, we're over the sadness guys. We've been through a lot this year. Can we just smile, maybe?'" 

The festival takes place this weekend and Lynn says "I hope it brings a little bit of light in this long couple of years that we've had." 

This year will be the festival's second try at making a first impression. Last year screenings were cancelled due to COVID.

Festival co-director Darren Stewart-Jones says "We were hoping to have our first year last year and just as we were starting to plan the festival and came up with the idea, the pandemic hit."

Stewart-Jones says he hoped that by now audiences would have been able to take a seat and enjoy the shows at Hamilton's Staircase Theatre. But that won't happen. The theatre remains closed due to COVID restrictions and films can be viewed online. But the goal remains the same —  getting the works of emerging filmmakers into the public eye. 

"We'd really like people to see these films that had been kind of sitting," he says. "For a year now, these filmmakers had been waiting to find out whether it will be happening or not." 

Stewart-Jones, who created the festival with Lisa Crawford, a transgender producer based in Hamilton, says it was designed in part to push back at common queer narratives, amplify trans and nonbinary voices and highlight more stories that aren't about trauma. 

The ability to tell stories that aren't always about trauma is really important for queer filmgoer Lyla Miklos. She says the festival can help provide something that's missing in Hamilton. 

She says "We as a queer community have, especially in Hamilton, so few spaces to come together in. There's not a village like there is in Toronto… like a 'gaybourhood,' as we sometimes call it. So having these events like Pride, like a film festival is a way for us to find spaces that are centred around our voices, our stories, our lives and not always about our oppression. " 

"[It's] a fantastic opportunity to hear new voices and get new perspectives and for people to educate themselves and enlighten themselves because that's what art's supposed to be about," says Miklos, "About opening your mind." 

The Hamilton Queer Film Festival is streaming this weekend, from June 19 to 20 and it's free.