Amélia, an emerging non-binary filmmaker, has been given 2 months given and a research grant to find out more about francophone queer life in western Canada. As the only participant from (what is colonially known as) British-Columbia and with only 3 weeks left, the pressure is on: Amélia rushes to find any traces of francophone queer people in Vancouver before the year 2000, the year they were born. Amidst this chaotic research effort, they find André, an older French-Canadian gay man that lived in Vancouver for 25 years. Through their conversations, Amélia unlocks André's hidden personal visual archive, that proves that, indeed, francophone queers were alive and thriving years before they were born. This documentary shows how Amélia put together a presentation about their own queer ancestors through screen capture, archival footage, interviews and narration that ends up changing their own view of themself as a queer french-canadian in the west.
Retrouvailles inconnues: Les francoqueers à Vancouver avant et après l'an 2000 (2024) is currently not available on any services.
Amélia Simard
