Those wanting to get into the Halloween spirit need not look any further than Toronto's Queer Cinema Club, which is offering spooky screenings this month.
The club will be showing director Luca Guadagnino's 2018 supernatural horror thriller Suspiria on Wednesday.
Hosted and created by film journalist Peter Knegt in 2022 as a way to build community and revive local theatres after the pandemic, the club offers screening events of cult-classic queer films every month at the Paradise Theatre on Bloor Street near Dovercourt Road.
"I found the sort of shutting down of the movie theatres and the whole element of the pandemic really sad, and it made me really miss it," Knegt said. "I wanted to do something that utilizes the idea of movies as a way of community building.
"We don't think of movies as something that builds community, but there's something so special about watching a movie with a bunch of people from your community together in an audience," he said. "I think there's something really important about that."
The Queer Cinema Club celebrated its second anniversary this past April and has done more than 40 showings.
The screening events include special guests, drag performances and exclusive poster art of the films by local queer artists – which are for sale at the event. Knegt said he makes an effort to include films that showcase and represent all areas of the LGBTQ+ community.
"It was very important to me to represent all the communities that sort of fit in under the queer umbrella," Knegt said. "There's just so many elements, you want to make sure that all of the diversity within the LGBTQ+ [community] is represented in these screenings so that people can come and see themselves on screen and feel like there's stories that connect to them."
Most screenings pack the house, which Knegt said is very "heartwarming" to see.
First published on Skedline.
