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…