Once you’ve heard Jackie Shane sing, you’ll never forget it. Yet, after shattering barriers as one of pop music’s first Black trans performers, this trail-blazing icon vanished from the spotlight at the height of her fame. From modest beginnings in Nashville, Shane soon recognized her talents and, in her late teens, made her way to Boston and Montreal, working the nightclub circuit while taking the stage with Frank Motley, a musician known for playing two trumpets at once. Her arrival in Toronto during its 1960s music explosion made her a highly sought-after headlining act who seemed destined to take her place among the R & B stars of the era. Blending her music with never-released phone conversations and soulful animated re-enactments, Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story brings Shane back to life in her own words, finally providing the recognition she so rightly deserves and introducing her to a generation fighting for their right to be their true selves.

In this queer drama, we follow Max, a 25-year-old freelance writer and aspiring novelist who seems well on his way to success in London’s cultural spheres. Yet by night, he finds a different kind of exhilaration as a sex worker with the pseudonym Sebastian, meeting men via an escorting platform. Max uses his experiences as Sebastian to fuel his stories and the worthy debut novel that he has been longing to write, finally seems within reach. As Max increasingly struggles to remain in control of a delicately balanced double-life, he must reckon with whether Sebastian is merely a writer’s tool in their quest for the ultimate sense of first-hand authenticity –or whether something more is at stake.

As Benjamin, a working-class musician and gay immigrant, grapples with the aftermath of a traumatic sexual assault by a stranger, he faces the daunting challenge of securing access to costly HIV preventative medication. Amidst this struggle, he finds himself drawn into a delicate dance of romance, navigating the complexities of new love.

With 40 years of making music as the iconic folk-rock band Indigo Girls, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers have made their mark as musicians, songwriters and dedicated activists. They have represented radical self-acceptance to many, leading multiple generations of fans to say, “the Indigo Girls saved my life.”

Still, Amy and Emily battled misogyny, homophobia and a harsh cultural climate chastising them for not fitting into a female pop star mold. With joy, humour and heartwarming earnestness, Sundance award-winning director Alexandria Bombach brings us into a contemporary conversation with Amy and Emily—alongside decades of the band's home movies and intimate present-day verité.

Teenager Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show — a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack. With a distinctive visual aesthetic that enhances its emotionally resonant narrative, I Saw the TV Glow further establishes writer-director Jane Schoenbrun as a rising talent.

Flush with contributions from Canadian political lesbians, this feature-length documentary traces the rise and fall of analogue feminist media that preceded the both digital technology and the MeToo era. From Halifax to Vancouver, feminist storytellers of the 1970s to 1990s took hold of then-cutting-edge technology to document everything from racism in the women's movement, to how to insert a diaphragm. Funny, smart, and sometimes heartbreaking stories from some of Canada's most important media makers and thinkers climax with the Montréal Massacre, followed by targeted government cutbacks. The film concludes with a resurgence: young BIPOC feminists using analogue strategies to create new feminist digital networks.

A deeply thoughtful and intimate look at a group of male dancers and sex workers in West Hollywood.