SHORTS: Pride and Wisdom: Stories of Queer Elders

presented by
Calgary Queer Arts Society

Step into the rich tapestry of lives lived, loves cherished, and battles won as you journey through this evocative short film collection. Delve into the untold stories and resilient spirits of queer elders, each film a luminous window into a world where time’s passage is marked by triumphs, setbacks, and unyielding authenticity.

DON'T CRY FOR ME ALL YOU DRAG QUEENS (2024)
Kristal Sotomayor / 9m / United States

An homage to the legendary Mother Cavallucci weaving together the present and past to provide a striking portrait of belonging and memory.

Writers: Kristal Sotomayor and María Luisa Santos

Producers: Kristal Sotomayor, Nic Cory, Daniel Brooks

Executive Producers: Brendan Gaul, Brett Henenberg, Sara Scully

Key Cast: Kevin Gilmore (aka Phoebe Manntrappe) and Michael Gardener (aka Miss Pumpkin)

Editor: María Luisa Santos

Cinematographers: Easton Carter Angle, 2nd Unit Director of Photography: Ian Mosley-Duffy

Music: William Maxwell

Other Credits
Associate Producer: Luke Bonzani; Sound Designer: Nayuribe Montero Jiménez

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MANTING (2023)
Shuyao Chen / 14m 59s / China

Manting, a Chinese woman in her 60s, reconnects with the lesbian lover from her adolescence, and they spend a night roaming in the city.

Producer: Yuanxing Hu

Cinematographer: Yifan Wen

Key Cast: Yijing Zhang, Changmin Zhang

Editor: Shikong Chen

Music: Seowon Hyun

Other Credits
Co-producers: Yumeng Han, Haozheng Li; Art Direction: Zongjian Hou, Costumes: Zixin Ye, Make up: Xuan Zi, Sound design: Aobo Huang

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STONEWALL POST ACTION NETWORK (2023)
Sarah Elizabeth Drummond / 12m / United Kingdom

Austin Allen ran one of the UK’s largest postal LGBTQIA+ action networks from his bedroom in the 1990s. STONEWALL POSTAL ACTION NETWORK tells the story of Austin’s activism, his letter writing campaign, and the packing up of his life work for an archive as he contemplates his legacy from his new home in rural Wales.

Cinematographer: Martyn Gough

Editor: Rouben Freeman

Key Cast: Austin Allen, Elliot Vaughn, Julian Corlett; Music Composition: James Campbell Wilkie

Other Credits
Motion Graphics: Welikenicethings

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THE LAST TAKE (2023)
Brian Foyster / 14m 17s / United States

Facing the end, a movie star from the golden age of Hollywood must reconcile with the only man he ever loved.

Producers: Michael McCartney, Pam Foyster, Melissa Sullivan, Yvette Brooks, Atman, Matthew DeGannon, Robert Clohessy, Robert John Burke, Russel Platoff

Key Cast: Robert John Burke, Richard Fancy, Austin Basis, Brian Foyster

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TICKER (2023)
Thom Petty / 9m 10s / United Kingdom

When Howard drives his partner, Joseph, to hospital to undergo a high-risk operation, the intimacy of the car, alongside a long forgotten mix tape, sees the masculinity of their forty year relationship start to yield.

Producers: Margaret Milner Schmueck

Key Cast: Paul Copley, Ian Gelder, Liz Fletcher

Editor & Cinematographer: Jay Lee

Music: Keith Weidner

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VESTIGES (2023)
Jofre Carabén, Yoann De Montgrand / 24m 2s / France

Opening night in Bastia. Ezy Rippart, one of the leading actors of the show, shows up at the theatre terribly late after getting lost in the city in the footsteps of a past love. While doing his best to prepare for the show, the actor, overwhelmed by this memory, seems to lose ground.

Producers: Hélène Mitjavile

Key Cast: François Testory, Djinda Kane, Vanessa Faye-Stanley, Adam Hafsia, Gray Orsatelli

Editors: Ann-Sophie Wieder, Nicolas Boucher

Cinematographer: Yoann de Montgrand

Music: Jean-Charles Bastion

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OLD LESBIANS (2023)
Meghan McDonough / 29m / United States
Alberta Premiere

For the last quarter century, Houston native Arden Eversmeyer journeyed across the country to record hundreds of oral “herstories” with a mostly invisible population that is rapidly disappearing.

OLD LESBIANS honors Arden’s legacy by animating the resilient, joyful voices she preserved in the Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project, from first crush to first love, from the closet to coming out, and finally, from loss to connection.

Producers: Meghan McDonough, Stevie Borrello

Writers: Meghan McDonough, Rengim Mutevellioglu, Marcie LaCerte

Key Cast: Arden Eversmeyer, Edie Daly, Barb Kucharczyk

Editor: Meghan McDonough

Other Credits
Nick Park

Cinematographers: Rengim Mutevellioglu, Cassie Coker

Other Credits
Art Director: Marcie LaCerte; Creative Director: Rengim Mutevellioglu; Animation: Marcie LaCerte, Dani Nunes; Additional Animation Design: Rengim Mutevellioglu; Additional Animation: Meghan McDonough; Composer & Re-recording Mixer: ; Sound Design & Foley: Tori Abreu dos Santos; Production Counsel: Matthew Rogers; Research Assistants: Cassidy Duncan, Helena Ravix, Sheridan Cole; Colorist: Tam Le; DI Coordinator: John Daniels-Riveros