But I’m a Cheerleader
a classic LGBT+ film screening at Capital Pride
Monday, August 22 at 6:30pm
Ottawa Art Gallery, Alma Duncan Salon
Revisit a beloved LGBT+ cinema classic on the big screen with IFFO’s presentation of But I’m a Cheerleader. Declared “the best lesbian movie of all time" (Autostraddle, 2015), Cheerleader was misunderstood by critics upon its release in 2000, but its campy satirical charm was enthusiastically accepted by audiences at LGBT+ film festivals and continues to be appreciated as a rare happy-ending queer film by viewers to this day.
The premise may sound bleak; a teenage cheerleader is sent to a gay conversion camp after her parents and friends suspect she is a lesbian. (Among the evidence: a Melissa Etheridge poster and interest in eating tofu.) However, director Jamie Babbit takes the premise to such an extreme level that it can only be humorous. The house of the rehabilitation camp, True Directions, is painted in obnoxious pink, blue, and green (for girls’, boys’, and neutral spaces) and their rehabilitation includes such gendered activities as housecleaning (for the girls) and wood chopping (for the boys). The idea of being able to un-gay someone is rendered laughably ineffective before the 5-step program even begins, when the co-leader of the camp, Mike, is played by renowned drag queen RuPaul. And it is in these over-the-top circumstances that Megan (Natasha Lyonne) moves through accepting that she is “a homosexual”, throwing herself into the rehab steps to be “cured”, and then backsliding as she begins to fall for the obstinate Graham (Clea Duvall). In a world full of hypocrisy, the one true thing in the film is the budding romance of two girls who finally found someone they can be themselves with.
Paired with the satirical But I’m a Cheerleader is the short film Curbside Pickup, a dark comedy about trying to re-enter the dating pool in your thirties during a pandemic, by local director Hingman Leung.
Stay after the screening for a reception where film enthusiasts and emerging filmmakers can connect over the film, local filmmaking, and LGBT+ cinema.
Pay-what-you-can tickets
(Pre-order to reserve your seat!)
+ a local short film
Curbside Pickup
Directed by Hingman Leung
A dark comedy about trying to re-enter the dating pool in your thirties during a pandemic. What if the hardest thing about dating in 2020 isn’t the pandemic?
Director and some cast & crew will be in attendance.
+ a mixer for emerging filmmakers
Stay after the screening for a reception where film enthusiasts and emerging filmmakers can connect over the film, local filmmaking, and LGBT+ cinema. No ticket required.