OUTtvGo and MediaQueer.ca Present Being Different, a Capsule of Five Films

August 2, 2017

VANCOUVER, BC & MONTREAL, QC – AUGUST 2, 2017 – OUTtv, Canada’s LGBTQ television network and MediaQueer.ca today announced their collaboration on a capsule of five films, Being Different, that will be available to stream at any time on OUTtvGo, OUTtv’s streaming video on demand service, starting August 2, 2017.

Being Different is MediaQueer.ca’s first capsule for OUTtvGo and features five films, curated by Jordan Arseneault and Thomas Waugh, that are part of a tradition – of going against tradition. “We want to show you works we love by artists we admire that highlight the radical originality of Canadian and Québécois queer film including fiction, animation, documentary, video and experimental works,” said Jordan Arseneault, Coordinator of the Queer Media Database Canada-Québec Project.

Brad Danks, CEO of OUTtv said “We have such admiration for MediaQueer and their work creating a much-needed archive of Canadian LGBTQ media.  We are honored that we are able to make these films available to audiences on OUTtvGo.”

The capsule starts with a work from 1957 that is as relevant today as it was 60 years ago, Julia Murphy’s “after school special” short, Being Different. This black & white treasure was scripted by documentary filmmaker Gudrun Parker, making it a rare women-made short from a male-dominated era about the perils and pathos of being boy who likes to catch butterflies – and who is made to feel different from the rest. The beauty and challenge of difference is a theme that runs through the shorts in this capsule, from Michelle Mohabeer’s sensuous 1996 Two/Doh to documentarian Rémy Huberdeau’s more recent Transforming Family, a window onto parenting while trans. Jeanne Crépeau’s L’Usure/By Attrition is a lyrical look at a challenge shared by people of all orientations across time: the lesbian break-up. Another kind of break-up is narrated wordlessly by gay animation trailblazer Norman McLaren in Neighbours, where we see the disintegration of a (perhaps) non-sexual relationship as two 50s normals fight over ownership of… a flower.

• Two/Doh – Michelle Mohabeer, 1996, 5min
  Distributor: CFMDC
• Transforming Family – Rémy Huberdeau, 2012, 11min
  Distributor: CFMDC
• Being Different – Julia Murphy, 1957, 10min
  Distributor: NFB
• Neighbours – Norman McLaren, 1952, 8min
  Distributor: NFB
• L’Usure / By Attrition – Jeanne Crépeau, 1986, 8min, French with English subs
  Distributor: Box Films