J, a black lesbian stud with mad swagger and stone butch tendencies, and her best friend Seb, a cute white twink with a penchant for brightly colored nail polish, do everything together. Seb assists JJ when she’s photographing gay and straight weddings, they club together, get high together, and they live together…usually harmoniously, even when JJ catches Seb masturbating in their flat’s kitchen. When JJ meets a beautiful femme named Elle at the local pub, Seb warns her that the seductress is trouble, to no avail: JJ is determined to have her, whether she’s seeing someone else or not. As JJ becomes more and more enamored with Elle and they begin a tumultuous, boundary‐pushing relationship, while Seb is busy lusting after his online conquests while thwarting the advances of a flamboyant drug dealer, their once solid friendship begins to waver. But it turns out that Elle has something to hide that JJ can’t wrap her mind around, and Seb’s manly cyber crush isn’t all that he seems. As urban London’s homophobia affects both of their lives in different ways, JJ and Seb must lean on each other and both are forced to reevaluate their own stereotypes and beliefs on love and life. Description courtesy of Angelique Smith of Frameline Film Festival.

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17 year old Mike has always been kind of a outcast, never quite on time, never knowing quite the right thing to say. He’s doing his best just to survive high school. But all that changes when a new kid arrives in his class, William. And when the two of them are immediately thrust together to complete an English class assignment, Mike sees his chance to become closer to the quiet, enigmatic Will. As the two spend more time together under the auspices of making a ‘monster movie’ version of Romeo & Juliet, they begin to realise that their feelings towards one another may be more powerful than they’d anticipated. But like the two main characters in the greatest love story ever told, Mike and Will seem pre‐destined to be kept apart, by their respective dysfunctional families, by their classmates, and by their own sexual confusion. Can their love overcome all obstacles? Or, like the Shakespearian monsters that inhabit their school project, are they fated to spend their existence haunted and alone? A coming‐out and coming‐of‐age drama firmly set in the 1990’s, MONSTER PIES is a snapshot in time, a moving teen romance unafraid to tackle the contradictions and complexities of the male adolescent heart and mind. NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

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An epic romance about an untenable love affair, Xavier Dolan’s third feature is his most stylish and mature work to date. The film centres on the tortured, on‐again, off‐again relationship between Laurence (Melvil Poupaud), a writer and teacher, and his girlfriend Fred (Suzanne Clément), a line producer on film productions. As the film opens, they’re ensconced in one of their favourite places: the 10 car wash, a fitting emblem for their claustrophobic relationship. Devout bohemians who have little interest in conventional mores, they lead a charmed existence buoyed by their contempt for virtually everyone else on the planet. That is, it’s a charmed existence until Laurence breaks down in tears and confesses that he believes he’s a woman trapped in a man’s body. Initially shocked, Fred soon decides to carry on as if nothing has happened. But as family pressures and her own doubts begin to mount, the couple drifts apart.

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