You demanded Tea & Sympathy, and we’re giving you Tea & Sympathy! 

On March 19th (the last night of winter, thank the gay lord), we will be screening Vincente Minnelli’s 1956 film, which earlier this year was selected by you as our very first film chosen by public vote. And you chose well, because this is an all-timer. (Also an all-timer: this absolutely gorgeous original poster designed by our friend Tim Singleton that we cannot wait to hang on our wall).

Starring John Kerr and Deborah Kerr (no relation) and directed by, you know, the (allegedlyish) queer man who married Judy Garland and fathered Liza Minnelli (🫨), there’s really no film like Tea & Sympathy. Produced under the extreme limitations of the Hays Code, it never explicitly says its main character is gay (because it literally can’t), but somehow manages to still be very much a film that is clearly about homophobia and bigotry. It’s a remarkably insightful film for its time, we are very excited you chose it.

Tickets now available here. Let’s shut down winter together with a little 🫖.

On March 10th, we’re continuing our “local queeroes” series with a celebration of wonderful Toronto filmmaker Pat Mills and his 2015 debut feature Guidance! 

A delightful and warm gem of a film that Mills wrote, directed and stars in, Guidance follows a very messy former child actor (Mills) who fabricates some credentials to take a job as a high school guidance counsellor. He manages to unexpectedly become quite popular in his new gig, primarily because of how much the students take to the deeply unhealthy coping mechanisms he offers up. 

Mills and several other special guests from the film will be in attendance at the screening, and will be sticking around for a Q&A after. 

This screening’s poster was created by another local queero: Maurice Vellekoop, whose extraordinary 2024 graphic memoir I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together recently won the Toronto Book Award (do get yourself a copy if you haven’t).

Guidance will be preceded by Steen Starr’s hilarious mockumentary short Putting The “I” In Trans. This is the second edition of our new initiative to screen local shorts from Queer Cinema Club fam before select features!

Tickets are available here.

It’s almost that time again! The night of nights, the show of shows, the film lover’s Super Bowl… and once again, we are celebrating them in style at the Paradise. Yes, the Academy Awards are just around the corner.

On the evening of March 2nd, Paradise Theatre is going to be throwing our third annual Oscar viewing party – and you are cordially invited to join us. Hosted by Peter Knegt, this Oscar party is going to have everything: drinks, food, incredible prizes, a best dressed contest, a good old fashioned Oscar prediction pool, and of course, a live screening of the awards themselves up on the big screen where they belong.

The Oscars start at 7 PM, but the doors to the Paradise will open at 5 PM. Come early and fill our your predictions ballot, get activated with a The Substance-themed cocktail (just remember you are one!), watch the red carpet and show off your own look.

The best dressed contest will be judged at 6:15pm, and the category is: your fashion interpretation of the nominated films. So whether that’s serving us Wicked or Nosferatu or The Substance or Conclave or even The Brutalist (last year’s winner of this contest was based on Anatomy of a Fall, so thinking outside the box can be key!), we invite you to take this as literally or non-literally as you’d like. Just have fun with it… though also please avoid offensive cultural appropriation!

This event’s wonderful poster designed by Jared Olsever. Get your tickets!

Next month, we celebrate Petra’s father.

For the grand conclusion of this winter's unraveling lesbian trilogy, we will be returning to TÁR, a film that gave us everything we wanted when it was released in the fall of 2022… and a film that will give that all again when we screen it on February 26th. 

Starring Cate Blanchett in a colossal performance as the EGOT-winning lesbian conductor myth and legend that is Lydia Tár, Todd Field’s film is an austere, hilarious and wildly entertaining ride that we are extremely excited to go on again with you all. And what’s more, we will be joined by burlesque performer Cherry Bomb, who will be offering up an onstage tribute to Ms. Tár before the film. 

This stunning poster comes care of our friend Jenn Woodall, and will be for sale at the screening. Get your tickets now, they’re gonna go fast!

We know the head of state we’ll be celebrating on January 20th, 2025.

Join us at Paradise to forget about everything that happened that day (it seems highly poised to be a bad one!) and instead bask in the glory of two true royals, Queen Christina of Sweden and Greta Garbo, as they come together as one in this incredibly queer pre-code movie from 1933!

The film stars a 27 year old Garbo as the titular 17th century queen, a woman whose unconventional life has been scrutinized and represented from her own time to today. Her sexuality and gender have now for nearly 400 years (she was born 398 years ago this week!) been the subject of conjecture. And Garbo (a queer legend of history in her own right) leans into this in her fiery portrayal of her. 

The screening will coincide with the premiere of Le Reine-garçon, a new opera based on Queen Christina’s life from Julien Bilodeau and Michel Marc Bouchard that will be running from January 31 to February 15 at the Canadian Opera Company. We’ll be joined onstage at the screening by musicologist Jane Forner, who will offer some insight into the film, the opera and the history behind both! 

Get your tickets at paradiseonbloor.com and also thank you so much to Cupid Pal for creating this absolute *stunner* of a poster 👑🦄

A month from today we are co-presenting a very special Saturday afternoon screening with the folks at Toronto Silent Film Festival: Salomé, an exceptionally queer film that is over 100 years old!

Part of TSFF’s series The Flesh and the Devil: The Notorious, Scandalous and Erotic Films of the 1920s, Salomé is an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s 1891 play of the same name. It was the brainchild of Alia Nazimova, a fascinating queer figure from the history of cinema. In addition to starring in the film, Nazimova also wrote (under a pen name), produced and co-directed (with her beard husband Charles Bryant, though Nazimova herself long went uncredited).

There is a longstanding rumour asserted by the late, great Kenneth Anger that in homage to Wilde, the film’s cast was composed entirely of gay or bisexual actors. This was reportedly demanded by Nazimova, who was clearly a Hollywood power lesbian of her time. She was known to openly have relationships with women while being married to men, and is even credited with originating the phrase “sewing circle” as a discreet code for lesbian or bisexual actresses!

More over, Nazimova deserves so much credit for this film, which over a century after its 1922 release has been hailed as the first queer cult film and a masterpiece of Art Nouveau and early Art Deco design. Come join us to see why — complete with live accompaniment from Tania Gull — on January 18 at 2pm at Paradise on Bloor. Get your tickets!

Can you ever forgive us for waiting until our 45th edition to offer up this wonderful little film? 

Starring Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant (both in Oscar nominated roles) as author/convicted forger Lee Israel and her questionable right hand man Jack Hock, Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a very special film. In part, that’s because it does something far too films ever do: at its core, it’s about the complexities of a relationship between a lesbian and gay man. Mind you, this particular lesbian and gay man are both total messes whose friendship is born out of desperation and alcoholism, and who spend most of their lives day drinking at a gay bar (@juliusbarnyc is essentially the third main character in this film!) but that’s part of what makes the film feel so singular: When do we ever get to see a queer woman and a queer man on screen just commiserating with one another?

Directed by the great Marielle Heller from an Oscar-nominated script by Jeff Whitty and Nicole Holofcener, Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a sad, hilarious and deeply human film that has much to say about queer friendship… and queer loneliness. Which is why it’s the perfect film for us to gather together and watch as we kick off our 2025 program. 

See you January 15th at Paradise, and thank you so much Rachelle Lenihan for creating this lovely poster ♥️ Get your tickets here!

Tickets and more info here.

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself, and we will bear witness to that together with our final screening of 2024: Stephen Daldry’s The Hours!

Perhaps the ultimate movie for those of us who identify as actressexuals, on December 11th we will come to this place (The Paradise Theatre ♥️) for the magic that is not only Nicole, Meryl and Julianne but also Allison Janney, Toni Collette, Claire Danes, Eileen Atkins, Miranda Richardson and Margo goddamn Martindale. The amount of Oscars and Emmys between them could build a gay ass skyscraper!

Also since this is essentially our holiday screening, we will be playing a round of actress trivia beforehand for some fun prizes AND be graced with the wonder that is Lucinda for a special The Hours themed drag performance before the film! You can also pick up a copy of this gorgeous poster made by our friend Kevin Greenspan (who co-runs the new Paradise Book Club series!).

We’re already counting the hours… (Get your tickets quick!)

It’s time to ride the Shortbus! On November 25, we are having a very special screening of John Cameron Mitchell’s deeply sweet, delightfully randy 2006 film. And we will have its star (and a true local queero) Sook-Yin Lee in the house to have a little salon after the film!

It’s always a good time to come together and celebrate bodies and sexuality, but it feels particularly important for us to do that now, and that is exactly what Shortbus has on offer. It’s as progressive and provocative now as it was back in 2006 (if not even more so) and the optimism at its core is something we very much need more of.

Thank you so much Christopher Sherman for this incredible poster, and also just for all the work he does celebrating bodies and sexuality and encouraging us to have a horny day. And on November 25, we will indeed have a horny night in his honour as we watch Shortbus together at Paradise. Get your tickets! 😈

HOMO SAY WHAT? is back in the gaybourhood Thursday November 14th with fabulous comedians serving Quality Queer comedy! SASKA DC headlines a lightening lineup for a night of great laughs! Proudly serving stellar stand-up in a fully accessible venue! Thank you Glad Day!

You don't want to miss this graet group of comedians seen on JFL, OutTV, SiriusXM, CBC Comedy, TikTok & more!

Featuring

PETER KNEGT, ERIN PURGHART, KARI JOHNSON & KUSH

Headliner SASHKA DC (JFL Originals, Gay AF Comedy Tour)

Hosted by Canadian Comedy Award winner ROBERT WATSON

Thursday November 14th, Doors 7:30pm / Show 8pm. Glad Day, 499 Church Street (South of Wellesley). Tickets $15 advance, $20 At-The-Door.

There couldn’t be Anora without Sin-Dee Rella and Alexandra. 

In 2015, filmmaker Sean Baker teamed up with actresses Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor to give us Tangerine, a movie that above all else is about queer friendship. Set over a wild Christmas Eve in Los Angeles, the film follows Sin-Dee (Rodriguez) and Alexandra (Taylor), bffs on a mission to get to the bottom of a rumour. The neo-screwball comedy that happens along the way is a deeply hilarious and heartfelt journey that feels very much like a sister film to Baker’s latest, the Palme d’Or-winning, potential Oscar frontrunner Anora.

Tangerine was shot entirely on iPhones (3 iPhone 5Ss, to be precise), and was also the first film to ever launch an Academy Award campaign for openly trans actresses in Rodriguez and Taylor. Though Oscar noms sadly didn’t happen (and they both very much deserved!), they did get Spirit and Gotham Award nominations, with Taylor winning both. 

As Anora hits cinemas and we head into an Oscar season that will heavily feature Sean Baker *and* potentially the first openly trans actor ever to be nominated (Karla Sofía Gascón for Emilia Pérez), it felt like a very good time to revisit the film that arguably made it possible for all of the above: Tangerine. 

Join us November 13th at Paradise, and thank you so much to Jared Olsever for creating this wonderful poster, which perfectly captures the essence of a very special film 🍊🍊🍊

Let’s give our souls to the dance and let mother take care of us. On October 30th, we are screening Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria, a film that was horribly underappreciated when it came out 6 years ago. Now we shall reclaim it, together as a queer coven at @paradiseonbloor. 

The night will kick off with a performance on stage from the one and only Allysin Chaynes, and dress code is witch (we’re a coven after all, though we are open to any and all interpretations of the theme). As well, this gorgeous poster created by Anthony Campbell will be available for sale at the screening.

Tickets now available at paradiseonbloor.com 🖤♥️

For the first of two October screenings, we are teaming up with our friends at MUBI Canada and the Paradise to bring you an unlikely top-hatted queer icon back up on the big screen where he belongs: The Babadook!

Sure, the rapid memeification of the Bababook as said icon may be a cautionary tale about how arbitrary queer culture can be in choosing and lionizing its objects of praise. But The Babadook also serves campy Gothic nightmare eleganza so fierce that his elevation to the pantheon of gay iconography makes complete sense to us. 
Some may look back to the film and see a queer allegory of the disturbing discontents of heteronormative parenthood, but the rest of us are simply Babashook. And Babashook will shall be together on October 24th at 8pm.

Given the season, we will also be having a costume contest celebrating Paradise’s October programming theme of “maternal horror.” Come dressed as your interpretation of that theme, and win yourself a fabulous prize. Tickets now available in the brand new Queer Cinema Club section at paradiseonbloor.com.

On September 25th, we celebrate one of (if not the) greatest queer filmmakers of all-time: Pedro Almodóvar! The living legend — who is debuting his first English-language feature The Room Next Door earlier in the month — will be turning 75 on that date, and Queer Cinema Club will lead the Toronto celebration of that milestone by screening one of his many masterpieces, 2011’s The Skin I Live In.

Described by Almodóvar himself as "a horror story without screams or frights,” The Skin I Live In follows skilled plastic surgeon Dr. Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas, serving), who is trying to develop a new skin that could save the lives of burn victims. After a decade of work, he has finally created a skin that guards the body, but is still sensitive to touch. With the aid of his faithful housekeeper (Marisa Paredes), Ledgard tests his creation on Vera (Elena Anaya), who is held prisoner against her will in the doctor's mansion.

A melodramatic thriller that only Almodóvar could pull off, The Skin I Live In’s themes of memory, degradation, grief and survival feel like exactly what the filmmaker might want us to ponder at his own birthday party.

We’ll also have a pre-show featuring a Almodóvarian-inspired performance from one of our other all time favourites, Gay Jesus. And we invite everyone who joins us to please come dressed inspired by Pedro. That could mean a general vibe or a specific film, whatever suits you best. We’ll have a few great prizes for the most impressive among you!

Get your tickets here, and thank you so much to Doug Rodas for creating this perfect poster, which will be for sale at the screening. See you soon, queers!

Our second summer guest curators are the dynamic duo of Devery Jacobs and D.W. Waterson (the star and filmmaker behind the fantastic new queer cheerleading film Backspot), and they’ve chosen a very special film: Alice Wu’s tender, charming 2004 rom com Saving Face!

Get your tickets, and marvel in this wonderful poster by artist Helena Janecic.

This summer, we are going to be welcoming some very special guest programmers! First up is someone who is no stranger to Queer Cinema Club: the wonderful filmmaker and actor Connor Jessup, who gave our first in-person introduction back in June 2022 when we showed his incredible performance in Closet Monster as our third ever screening. Now it’s our 38th screening (!) and we are honoured to have Connor back to select Ira Sachs’s deeply moving Keep The Lights On as his pick for Queer Cinema Club’s July film.

Says Jessup on his selection:

“Keep the Lights On is a movie about failure and limitation — failures of character, failures of love, failures of hope, the limits of honesty and a life lived in time. But it’s made with limitless love, limitless hope, limitless honesty. Stretched taut between life and art, it vibrates quietly. It makes you want to lean in and listen.”

So come lean in and listen with Jessup and your Queer Cinema Club fam on July 17th at 8pm. And thank you so much to Rowan Campbell for creating the film’s haunting poster.

GET YOUR TICKETS HERE!

Devery Jacobs (Reservation Dogs, Rhymes for Young Ghouls) co-produces and stars in the sapphic cheerleading drama Backspot, the début feature by Toronto writer-director D.W. Waterson. Premiering to raves and cheers at TIFF 2023, Backspot opens in theatres across Canada on May 31st, and will hit the TOPS screen for one night only on June 24 at Fort York. Jacobs (herself a former Team Ontario gymnast) headlines a cast of young Toronto talent in a film that explores topics too rarely discussed out loud in the competitive world of cheerleading, including classicism, queerness, and racism. The result is a deeply moving portrayal of young female athletes persevering in spite of unsustainable stress levels to reach their full athletic potential, showcasing the value of collegiality and mutual care in insular, high-intensity, working environments. This will surely be an audience favourite at TOPS this summer!

Monday, June 24, 2024
Venue: "Walled Fort" of Fort York National Historic Site - entry at west gates of 100 Garrison Road   

Admission: Free/PWYC (no ticket required to attend)
Donations make our programming possible (click here)

Event details:
Eats & Treats @ 7 pm / Showtime @ sundown (~ 9:00 pm)
Programme runtime: 1hr 52min
Food & alcoholic beverages for sale (no outside alcohol permitted)
BYOBlanket & Chairs
Films are screened with open captioning.
Please click to read about additional accessibility features
Content advisory: This programme contains mature themes, coarse language, alcohol/drug use, sexually suggestive scenes, and discussion of self harm.

Wheel-Trans Arrival Details: The event is located inside the “Walled Fort” at Fort York National Historic Site. The event entrance gate can be accessed at 100 Garrison Road, where a paved path leads into the fort towards the screening area (the screening area and other venue amenities are a short walk past the event gate, followed on a flat, paved path). Upon arrival to the event entrance gate, guests are welcome to connect with a TOPS staff member, who can be identified by wearing a lanyard and found at the event gate, if they’d like assistance navigating the screening area.

We’re teaming up with MUBI again for a nasty night of subversive cinema!

On June 19th, join us at the Paradise Theatre for Rotting in the Sun director Sebastián Silva‘s 2015 film Nasty Baby, which stars Silva, Kristen Wiig and Tunde Adebimpe. Just be warned: it’s a bit of a wild ride that might leave you challenging your own notions of modern queer adulthood (among other things).

Thank you Sophie Paas Lang for this gorgeous poster, which will be available for sale at the screening. Tickets available here. 👹👶🏻

Wanna go back, back to 1999… specifically to feel all the things as a Swedish and/or British teen? Well then you’re in luck! On June 12th, we are offering up a double dose of nostalgic teen angst with back-to-back screenings of two films that hold very special places in our gay little hearts: Lukas Moodysson’s Show Me Love (aka Fucking Åmål) and Simon Shore’s Get Real.

Both films are somehow no longer teens: they are celebrating their 25th anniversaries. But they both still capture adolescence with a warmth and authenticity that remains a high bar in the history of movies about growing up queer. (Only one of them, however, can say they are responsible for inspiring the creation of the pop duo t.A.T.u., and that of course is Show Me Love).

Thank you Rachelle Lenihan for creating these stunning dual posters, both of which will be available for purchase at Paradise that night. And also that night, we will be celebrating 1999 with a special performance by the one and only @Manny Dingo (before the Get Real screening).

Get your tickets here!

Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine as sapphic headmistresses at a girls’ boarding school in the first mainstream American film to *ever* feature a lesbian character in a leading role? What more could you possibly want?!?

Well if you do want more, we are pulling out a few stops for this screening, which will go down June 5th at 8pm and celebrate not only William Wyler’s 1961 film The Children’s Hour but the release of Julia Erhart’s book about the film for the fabulous McGill-Queens University Press series Queer Film Classics. Erhart will be joining us live via Zoom from Australia to talk about the film afterwards!

And then before, we will be graced by the majestic presence of Miss Juwanna Dewitt, one of the subjects of the latest season of the CBC Arts docuseries Canada’s a Drag and one of the oldest regularly performing drag queens in North America! All we’ll say is Juwanna will be serving 1961 lesbian in her perfomance and you will be living for it. GET YOUR TICKETS HERE!

Erhart’s book will be for sale at the screening, as will this haunting original poster by the wonderful Tess Reid! This will also be the first of several screenings we have at the Paradise this June, so if 1961 lesbians aren’t your thing (which would honestly be kinda tragic for you), there’s more coming…

On May 27th, we will be continuing our Local Queeroes series by celebrating the 20th anniversary of Ian Iqbal Rashid’s absolutely delightful 2004 romantic comedy Touch of Pink. The screening will be in collaboration with SanghumFilm Collective, and we have invited quite the lineup of special guests: The film’s writer and director (and an absolute local queero) Rashid will be joined by various members of the cast and crew for a Q&A after the film!

The screening’s poster was created by Toronto cartoonist and illustrator Sami Alwani, and will be available for purchase before and after the film. Get your tickets here!

Since Queer Cinema Club Toronto is now in our second year, it seemed about time we got a sibling. So mother has informed us that she will soon be giving birth to the Montreal chapter of Queer Cinema Club with a screening of Stephen Daldry’s The Hours at Cinema Moderne!

QCC MTL will be curated and hosted by Montreal’s finest queer cinephile Jeremie Romain, who we very much trust will be slaying those screenings in his own special way. Like us, he will be enlisting some of his city’s great queer artists to make posters for the screenings, with Ouioknon first up and serving with this poster for The Hours.

Their first screening will be happening at the very same time as Happy Together, and we are pretty certain audiences in both cities will happy together in spirit as they spend the hours watching two true queer cinema classics (sorry for putting you through that sentence). Tickets available soon at Cinema Moderne’s website.

This May, you are cordially invited to get emotionally destroyed in a movie theatre with us! Because when it comes to queer romances, it doesn’t really get more raw, turbulent and devastating than Wong Kar Wai’s exhilarating Happy Together.

The 1997 film stars Hong Kong superstars Leung Chiu Wai and Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing as a couple *really* going through it as they travel through Argentina together. It’s a stunner (literally, thanks to the lush stylings of cinematographer Christopher Doyle) that begs to be seen on a big screen, which is exactly what we’ll be doing come May 15th.

See you then, and thank you Duy Lawrence Nguyen for this gorgeous poster, which will be available for sale at the screening. Get your tickets!

1987: While the other students wonder if new kid Robin is a boy or a girl, Robin forges a complicated bond with the school bully, making increasingly dangerous choices to fit in.

Director: Trevor Anderson
Cast: Vaughan Murrae, Dominic Lippa, Lacey Oake

Cast And Crew Will Be In Attendance On April 19th! 

Guest Attendees: 

Trevor Anderson – Director 

Vaughn Murrae – Star 

Alyson Richards – Producer 

Q&A on April 19th will be moderated by Peter Knegt

Get your tickets!

How does a queer cinema club turn two years old? With a two hour film written and directed by two trans sisters, starring two queer icons as two queer women who hatch a scheme to steal $2 million, that’s how!

Yes, on April 17th, it will have been 2 years since we had our fateful first screening at the Paradise Theatre. And to wish ourselves and everyone who has joined us a happy birthday, we will be showing the absolutely iconic 1996 directorial debut of Lana and Lilly Wachowski, Bound.

A wildly inventive update on film noir starring Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly as two lovers out to take some of that Mafia money, Bound is an outrageous cinematic pleasure of the highest order. Stylish, sexy, suspenseful and so very satisfying, what more could you ask from a 1990s lesbian caper? Well, how about a jaw-dropping performance from the one and only Gushy before hand? And then drinks upstairs at Bar Biltmore after?

So come one, come all, to a very special birthday party. Get your tickets here, queers.

“Are you ready to redefine the meaning of sacredness in the name of all that is queer and holy?”

In the breathtaking debut novel Dayspring, author Anthony Oliveira blends fiction, memoir, and verse into heart-wrenching stories of passion, grief, destruction, and survival. This a story of a saviour, and the disciple he loved, a story outside of time and place of doomed figures from history and the trials of modern life. You have never read a book like Dayspring.

Join Anthony in conversation with journalist Peter Knegt as they discuss this “deluge of erotic and sensuous love that challenges our expectations of religious devotion."

ACCESS THE EVENT HERE from 10-11:30 EST on April 9th

To join the event you will need a computer, tablet or phone with the Zoom app. Headphones are recommended. This event will be a webinar, so the audience will not be visible, and you do not require a webcam.

It’s finally time for Tom Ripley, one of cinema’s all time great queer villains (Oliver Quick ain’t got nothing).

Just in time for the film’s 25th anniversary (and a few weeks before the Netflix reboot with king Andrew Scott debuts), we are bringing Anthony Minghella’s 1999 masterpiece to Queer Cinema Club.

Adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel (yes, Tom Ripley and Carol Aird were born in the same glorious queer mind!), this film has everything you could ever possibly ask for: Italy, Aunt Joan, murder, Jude Law being the sexiest golden man who ever lived, Cate Blanchett and Gwyneth Paltrow BOTH mothering, Philip Seymour Hoffman giving us his very best 🚬 (sorry Truman Capote) and, of course, Matt Damon at the absolute peak of his powers.

What do they say about March again? In like a lion, out like a duplicitous gay sociopathic murderer? (If that’s not what they say then they should change it because that’s certainly been our experience).

Killer poster by the dark lord king Slick Satan. Tickets available here. See you March 27th 🔪