Queer & Now: Lilies (4K Restoration) — Carbon Arc

Saturday, July 18, 8:30PM John Greyson | Canada | 1996 | 95m English, French with English subtitles Lilies will be preceded by local short “Pan & Syrinx” | A. Laurel Lawrence | Canada | 2024 | 16m – introduced by A. Laurel Lawrence! “Pan & Syrinx” Synopsis: In the last breaths of bacchanale, two lovers are told the tale of the great god Pan’s violent pursuit of the forest nymph Syrinx. As the story’s violent end unfolds, the lovers are haunted by the parts they find themselves playing. The film refracts the myth through layers of song, identity, and performance: at once a ballet, a trans fantasia, and an exploration of love and power. 1952: Bishop Bilodeau visits a prison to hear the confession of Simon, a boyhood friend jailed for murder 40 years ago. However, once there, Bilodeau finds himself forced to watch a play put on by Simon and the other inmates depicting the two men’s youths. As the play progresses, the truth of Simon’s crime comes to light in a film that explores forbidden sexuality, race, gender, the Catholic church and a tragic miscarriage of justice. Director John Greyson ( Zero Patience, Uncut, The Law of Enclosures ) fuses past and present, love and betrayal in this adaption of Quebec Playwright Michel Marc Bouchard’s play Lilies or the Revival of a Romantic Drama. Speaking about what resonated with him about the project, Greyson says: “What was… present for both Michel Marc and myself was our shared history of growing up Catholic. I was an altar boy and a choirboy. He was growing up in rural Quebec in the utter grip of the post–Vatican II Council revolution, with Catholicism just emerging from the legacy of a very repressive church. I think both of us were accessing not the contemporary urgency brought by ACT UP—which also targeted Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry, and Ronald Reagan—but our own pasts. ” Lilies is part of Carbon Arc’s July retro series : Queer and Now, Queer Canadian Classics. Also screening in the series are Patricia Rozema’s I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing (Saturday July 11), and Lynne Fernie and Aerlyn Weissman’s Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives (Saturday July 25). “A tense drama of tangled emotions and savage repercussions.” – Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle “Greyson deserves much credit for realizing an outrageous theatrical conceit with clarity, consistency, and an arsenal of cinematic ideas.” – Bob Satuloff, Film Journal International Tickets $12 ($11.40 at the door if available) Saturday, July 18, 8:30 PM Tickets Tagged coming soon