Bringing Community Together at Fairy Tales Queer Film Festival

The Fairy Tales Queer Film Festival brings back in-person screenings after presenting virtually for the last two years.

By Hana Hossain

After two virtual years, Calgary Queer Arts Society's Fairy Tales Queer Film Festival is returning for in-person and online film screenings this year. The festival will be in person at The Globe Cinema and online at xerb.tv from June 3-12. They have shown nearly 1500 films over the years and expect to show around 46 in 2022.

Emma Brockelbank is Calgary Queer Arts Society's executive director. While she has only been in the position for less than a year, she is excited to express leadership in the arts through the position. "I like to bring an energy of positivity and motivate people around me, including people I work with and the people who are enjoying the programs that I'm putting on," Emma says. "I want to empower them to feel like they have purpose and control, be able to do what they like, and make the best of their situations. Honestly, the most important thing to do as a leader is to make the people feel good around you."

**Emma Brockelbank**
*Calgary Queer Arts Society's executive director*

The Fairy Tales Queer Film Festival has been a chance for Calgary Queer Arts Society to bring a wide range of representation of queer identity representation to Calgary, ranging from a Rwandan-American films to sci-fi movies and much more. For Calgary, this film festival is more important now than ever, says Emma. "For Calgarians, we get to see all of this representation, but we can relate to it too." Emma notes that around 43,000 people living in Calgary identify as queer.

She says people often have ideas or stereotype Alberta and Calgary as conservative and not very diverse in its queer community. They may even associate Calgary with being more "basic." This is not the Calgary community Emma sees. "There's such diversity in those 43,000 people that the reason we bring this festival here is to bring a bunch of queer people out to meet each other and see that there is a whole bunch of different people. They all represent and believe in different things, and we are not all homogeneous as people think we may be."

The film festival will look a bit different this year. Emma comes from a background in media art, and they have seen festivals with ground-breaking films, but this year they wanted to go one step further. "We're going to incorporate media arts and sculpture. There are five nights that we're doing that are curated nights of film, but there are dance performances, too. There's also photography there," says Emma. "These different art experiences are a way for us to see diversity in the films that exist in Fairy Tales, but also show there's diversity in the practices of people in our queer community. So, we are just trying to show that there is so much cool stuff to be done."

This new format with different art incorporated is very personal to Brockelbank as she gets to use her own practice. The sculptures she noted will be made by her. Another feature at the festival during one of an evening titled Sacred+Amor+Divinity, a massive altar for black and brown people of colour who don't get to see themselves portrayed in like angelic form will be erected on site. This is a collaboration between myself and the curator, Wilmer Aburto.

After two years of presenting the festival virtually, Fairy Tales is reintroducing in-person film screenings while also keeping an online option. "We wanted to respect that there are some people who would want to watch online," says Emma. "It is also about accessibility. There are still people who, due to COVID-19, still cannot go out in public or have lost access to many things because of the pandemic, and we cannot just forget about them." Emma says people will be able to watch many films online, but the festival organizing team is excited to bring in-person events back as they present their first in-person Fairy Tale Film Festival in two years.

Fairy Tales Film Festival will be in person at The Globe Cinema and online at xerb.tv from June 3-12. See what's playing at the festival at fairytalesfilmfest.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hana Hossain (she/hers) is a second-year Hospitality Management Student at SAIT. Her passion for activism and supporting the LGBTQ2S+ community led her to co-create the SAITSA Pride Club. As a content writer for Pride In Business, Hana is delving into Calgary’s LGBTQ2S+ business community and bringing her community-focused lens to her writing.

Pride In Business article in partnership with TD.

Pride In Business article in partnership with TD.
By Hana Hossain