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EXCLUSIVE: Inside Out, the Toronto based organization that leads Canada’s largest 2SLGBTQ+ film festival, has revealed the 2024 recipients of its RE:Focus Fund supporting post-production and promotion, with the 14 grantees hailing from Canada, the U.S. Pakistan, Chile and Singapore.
The selection includes Canadian filmmaker Tricia Hagoriles’s documentary feature The Archivist: Sur Rodney (Sur) exploring the titular Canadian artist’s mission to preserve the work of gay artists dying around him in the AIDS crisis in New York in the 1980s.
The fund is also supporting U.S. directorial duo Gaia Caramazza and Kira Boden-Gologorsky short doc The Encampment going behind the scenes of the Columbia University Gaza Solidarity encampments, and Paige Gratland’s Phranc: The Butch Closet, in which the artist reflects on a retrospective of her work at the Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica last year.
Fiction works include Brittany Alexia Young’s comedy Munchies about a reunion between two high school friends that takes a dark turn when junk food cravings lead them to raid a convenience store, as well as Radha Mehta and Saif Jaan’s Witness, about a imam who faces a crisis of faith.
“We were overwhelmed to witness a record number of submissions for this year’s RE:Focus Fund Post-Production Grant, a testament to the astounding growth of 2SLGBTQ+ storytelling,” said Jenna Dufton, Director of Festival Programming at Inside Out.
“The incredible range of Canadian and international projects selected this year underscores the importance of supporting queer voices globally. We’re proud and honored to play a role in helping these filmmakers bring their powerful stories to the screen, further enriching the landscape of queer cinema.”
The fund has distributed more than $300,000 in festival travel grants and professional development programs for filmmakers since its creation.
It was originally launched as a travel grant program in response to the recognition that trans, non-binary and women filmmakers were underrepresented in international festival attendance.
Inside Out grew the fund with the launch of the RE:Focus Fund Post-Production Grants in 2019 to support post-production and promotion of short and feature films.
The Inside Out Toronto 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival is one of the largest queer film festivals in North America and the single largest promoter and distributor of 2SLGBTQ+ content in Canada. The event takes place in person and online from around the end of May to early June.
The full list of grantees and projects
The Archivist: Sur Rodney (Sur)
Director: Tricia Hagoriles (Can)
Documentary Feature
In the AIDS crisis of 1980s New York, Sur Rodney (Sur) a successful gallerist of the East Village Art World leaves it all behind to preserve the work of gay artists dying around him. Presently, Sur continues his preservation work of his late partner while taking on the arduous task of building his own archive and the histories of many artists within it.
baby fat
Director: Iris Kim (Can)
Narrative Short
The Encampment
Directors: Gaia Caramazza, Kira Boden-Gologorsky (U.S.)
Documentary Short
With intimate access to the Columbia Gaza Solidarity encampments The Encampment captures the historic protest movement that unfolded inside Columbia University and ignited the rest of the world, told through the key activists who organized it all.
Forest Echoes
Director: Eva Grant Canada
Narrative Short
A love story set against the backdrop of the climate crisis and the opioid epidemic, Forest Echoes follows Echo and Wild, two urban Indigenous land defenders. On the one-year anniversary of their arrest on the front lines, a death in their community opens old wounds but also offers them a chance to heal.
Full Month
Director: Ash Goh Hua (Singapore)
Narrative Short
Following the birth of her niece, 33-year-old black sheep of the family Jing returns to Singapore for the newborn’s full month celebration. Here she is forced to confront her contentious relationship with her estranged mother and a traditional family politic—the causes of her departure a decade prior.
Hold Me Close
Directors: Aurora Brachman, LaTajh Weaver (U.S.)
Documentary Short
Hold Me Close explores the unique power and complexity of the relationship between two Queer Black women, Corinne and Tiana. Filmed over the course of a season, Corinne & Tiana experience cycles of life’s joys and pains together in the home they share.
If We Met Now
Director: Halen King (Canada)
Narrative Short
If We Met Now dissects relationships, sexuality and gender through the lens of a transgender man, who confronts his cisgender boyfriend’s disapproval towards a gender affirming procedure.
Munchies
Director: Brittany Alexia Young (U.S.)
Narrative Short
Munchies is a fun, fast-paced crime comedy that follows an estranged high school clique as they reunite for a summer girl’s night to get high together like old times. Their sleepover takes a hilariously dark turn when junk food cravings land them in the middle of a botched convenience store robbery.
The Nobles
Director: Khaula Malik (Pakistan)
Documentary Feature
In Rawalpindi, Pakistan, the khwaja sera and trans communities, led by activist Bubbly Malk, build a thriving cafe at a local university, fostering exchange and connection over shared meals. When their economic lifeline is threatened and the cafe is forced to close, the community must find new pathways for survival and connection.
Phranc: The Butch Closet
Director: Paige Gratland (Canada)
Documentary Short
Artist and musician Phranc reflects on her new exhibition, The Butch Closet, a memoir in the form of a multi-disciplinary art installation that spans forty years of her life as a queer, gender nonconforming visual artist and performer.
Understanding Myself as an Amphibian
Director: Maxwell Matchim (Canada)
Documentary Short
A reference to the green frog, an Ontario amphibian which is able to change its sex, Understanding Myself as an Amphibian combines memoir with wildlife documentary to explore the diversity of gender and sexuality in the wildlife around us.
Uneven
Director: Ariel Mahler (U.S)
Narrative Short
Uneven is a nonlinear exploration of longing and loneliness, told through the lens of a queer non-monogamous relationship. The story follows Tom and Max, a once profoundly in-love gay couple, who are driven apart by differences in their relationship orientations.
Verses From the Water
Director: Amadis T. Loyer Chile
Experimental Short
In a dreamlike mind space, a young adult faces a big question that taunts them since childhood. Is Amadis a man or a woman? Through metaphors between gender identity and water, Amadis revisits memories from when they were young, while trying to clear out the confusions between sex and gender and facing their growing wish of being born again.
Witness
Director: Radha Mehta, Saif Jaan (U.S.)
Narrative Short
A revered small-town imam faces a crisis of faith when he must choose between upholding the values of his mosque or protecting the safety and spiritual belonging of a male congregant.
