S2E1. Iris Pint & exposures Film Festival: Queer Collective Sensations in Film
Iris Pint, the founder of Exposures Montreal, a queer and trans film collective, discusses the importance of amplifying voices from the global south and underrepresented regions. Exposures aims to create a space for queer and trans individuals to see themselves represented on screen and learn about different geographical areas. Iris emphasizes the power of watching films together in a dark room, as it allows for shared experiences, community building, and the exploration of intense emotions. They also highlight the limitations of verbal labels and the need to go beyond identity categories to connect with others in a meaningful way. Iris shares their excitement for the upcoming film festival in September, which aims to create a hub for trans and queer people to come together for four days.
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Takeaways
Exposures Montreal focuses on amplifying voices from the global south and underrepresented regions.
Watching films together in a dark room allows for shared experiences and community building.
Identity labels can create a cognitive grip and limit our nonverbal shiftings that express pleasure, sexuality, and gender.
The upcoming film festival in September aims to create a hub for trans and queer people to come together and feel good feels and hard feels.
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Film Schedule and Tickets for Exposures Mtl
https://www.instagram.com/exposures.mtl/
Susie (00:00)
Hello and welcome to Pleasure Morsels. This is a podcast opening up maps to navigate the less traveled paths to experiencing
Iris Pint is a film curator and a PhD candidate in English at McGill. They set up Exposures Montreal in 2023, just last year. This is a queer and trans film collective that aims to focus on voices from the global south and other underrepresented regions as much as possible. Many programs at Exposures are dedicated to amplifying perspectives that are often overshadowed by white understandings of sexuality and gender.
that often come from the global north. Iris, thank you so much for being here.
Iris (00:47)
It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Susie (00:50)
So let us jump in. You have made quite a splash in Montreal. You're already selling out venues after just under a year of running. What are people showing up for?
Iris (01:04)
So thank you very much. That's very kind of you to say. I think to kind of answer that question, I kind of first need to tell you why I set up exposures in the first place. I moved here from London. I lived in London for 10 years and as someone who used to live there, there's a lot of these kinds of, there's a lot of queer and trans events in London by virtue of being such a huge cultural capital. So I spent the last 10 years of my life being an attendee to so many different incredible underground queer and trans screenings. And then when I moved to Montreal, I started looking for the same thing and I couldn't find it.
And I just missed being in a room full of weird people watching weird films. It's a great love and pleasure of mine. So I thought, well, if it doesn't exist already, I'm gonna create it. So that's kind of the driving force behind it. And I was pleased to realize that here, the same as it was in London,
You know, people are interested in seeing films that are not easily or readily available on your major streaming networks. Films made by, you know, smaller filmmakers on DIY budgets, not the greatest quality, but films that very much managed to sort of capture truthfully or authentically, as much as I hate those words, what it feels like to be a...
queer and trans person in different parts of the world today or in the past. So people are really showing up to see themselves represented on screen and to learn more about their history and to learn more about, you know, different geographical areas. And, you know, although we all live in 2024, being queer and trans here versus somewhere like Eastern Europe where I grew up or, you know,
parts of Africa or Asia is very, very different. And film is a great tool that we can use to connect with these other groups and learn more about our own community.
Susie (03:29)
And I think you're already answering this next question of, okay, this is something that you wanted and so you knew that you like it, so why not start it up and then, wow, amazing, people showed up and see the value in the diversity of voices. But I wanna ask a bit more, what is it that drives you to bring people together to watch films in a dark room?
Iris (03:54)
I think for me, there is a completely different experience to being in a cinema together. Or it doesn't have to be a cinema. Most of my screenings do not take place in cinemas. They actually take place in bars or studios. But there is something absolutely beautiful and energizing about being able to...
sort of follow the rhythms of a film alongside other people to laugh together, to cry together, to get scared, to get outraged, to get embarrassed, to get uncomfortable. And it is also a great way to create community. You know, when you first move to a new place and you don't really know anybody, I've made so many incredible friends through these events. And I feel like I definitely have a family of queer and trans people.
here in Montreal that I didn't have before. So those are two of my kind of main reasons for doing it, alongside the fact that I love film. It's what I dedicate most of my time to. I get so giddy and excited when I find something good. And my first tendency is always to call all of my friends and be like, my God, you have to come to my house and watch this film with me because it's incredible.
And it's the best film ever. If you ask my friends the amount of times I've called them to be like, I watched the best film ever. And they always say, how many best films ever are there? But it's that sort of excitement that I feel in my body that I just wanna share with other people. And yeah, it's what I do.
Susie (05:41)
Okay, let me find that little nugget there. It is the excitement in your body. That's what, that's exciting to me. So I'm a nervous system nerd, right? So if you're saying you are gathering people in the room so we can all get excited in our bodies and we connect by these felt senses, these felt emotions, and of course you create community because that's what our bodies are wired to do, is when it feels, I think, I'm gonna say the word, I'm not sure, safe enough. I struggle with that word, because it's so loaded, but that you have created a container, you're like, okay, this is what we're here to do. So it's like, all right, now we understand what it is. So then we are more free to have these emotions, excitement, and it can feel playful, even if they're kind of unpleasant feelings. It's feeling okay because everyone else is in the same soup.
Iris (06:46)
Yeah, exactly. And, you know, excitement refers to an intensity that can be created in the body by positive and negative feelings, right? So Exposures mainly screens trans film. And when you actually think about, you know, the history, the kind of academic history of transness and like what trans actually stands for, most academics encourage us to think about trans as a verb, not as an identity category. So transing needs to be something that connects, that moves across bodies. So it requires more than one in order to do its job. And that's kind of what I'm trying to create through this container. But it's also, I'm trying to create, again, to use that word safe, as complicated and imperfect as it may be, a safe sort of place where people can go through or experience, deal with certain feelings and affect that queer and trans people experience all the time, whether that's discrimination or shame or violence on one hand, but also trans euphoria and excitement and happiness and joy and on one hand, being in a group amplifies the good stuff and cushions the bad stuff or kind of allows people to work through some of that in a more protected way, if you will.
Susie (08:33)
I'm feeling really excited by what you're saying of sharing those negative feelings because often shame and fear are very isolating. There's this withdrawal response. But if, and then also the like shame about feeling shame. So we kind of put rigid layers on top of it because it's so lonely. But if you know that the person next to you is sharing it, like you said, that's the cushion.
Iris (09:05)
And there's also the mediation of the screen because although you might experience these feelings in your own body throughout the day, seeing it on screen, it's one level removed, right? So on one hand, you secondhand experience it through what you're watching, but you're not experiencing it directly. And that in itself oftentimes helps people heal.
or learn better ways of dealing with those emotions or those experiences that they have directly. And then being able to go for a cigarette or have a drink after the screening with other people and talk more about it and perhaps share experiences or comment on the film, you know, really does wonders. And I've had so many people come up to me after a screening, weirdly like thanking me for screening the hard stuff.
And I always feel a little bit weird because the history of queer and trans cinema is full of trauma and tragedy and drama. That's the bulk of it all. So I tried to stay away from it and bring in as much positive emotion as possible. But when I do find a really good gem of a film that deals with those emotions, I screen it. And I was very surprised to see people come up to me to say, thank you for allowing me to experience that in a room of people who look like me and feel like me because that felt safe and that allowed me to work through some stuff. And that for me is kind of the best, you know, it's part of the reason why I do this. And yeah.
Susie (10:44)
From that, I want to look onto your values, right? So you're prioritizing voices from the global south. So as someone who is white and from the global north, I'm curious, I'm sure people listening are curious of what expressions of pleasure, sexuality, and gender show up in these perspectives that are missing from our Western culture.
Iris (11:16)
Yeah, that's a great question. it's something that I grapple with. I grew up in Romania. That's where I'm from. I did not know that queer people existed. For the first 18 years of my life, you heard about gayness as something that exists in the ether somewhere, but it was not something that I ever directly experienced. And I remember there was this one kind of masculine presenting girl in my high school and I was obsessed with her and I had no idea why or what the hell was going on there. But whenever she would walk by, I would always like turn my head around and just pause any conversation I was having with my friends. You know, the pool was huge. Like my entire body.
all of my senses just wanted to go that way instead of focusing on what I was already doing with my friends. And I had no way of explaining what these feelings that I had were trying to tell me until I moved to London and I started exploring my own identity and my own sexuality. And I started reading up on it and I was like, OK, this all makes a lot of sense. And I guess because I kind of grew up with that sort of slanted or opaque understanding of pleasure and sexuality, I love finding films that come from places where being openly queer is not available to people, it's not safe.
I love finding these sort of opaque representations of desire and sexuality and sort of try and bring them into my programming to make people understand that these intensities, these feelings, these pleasures can be experienced very differently when you don't necessarily have the framework or the vocabulary that identity politics has imposed on the Western world. And oftentimes, they are more interesting and kind of more directly pleasurable than necessarily having like, you know, an American person show up and be like, I'm queer, I'm trans going about their day because you, or at least I relate directly to those intensities a lot more than I relate to this kind of I'm trans because I call myself trans or I'm queer because I call myself queer as opposed to focusing on the pleasures and the way that things relate. So that's part of my answer. And the other part is that there are so many different ways of expressing gender and thinking about identity across the world. For example, on the 25th, I'm screening a film about the community in Haiti. So these are feminine men who, their understanding of the gender that doesn't directly translate to anything in the English language.
And it's an incredible documentary piece about the culture of these people and how they relate to voodoo in particular is a big religion that shows up or spiritual practice rather than religion that shows up for them. And, you know, suddenly queerness or transness is no longer just about an identity, it's about these practices, it's about spirituality, it's about how you connect to community, it's about what role you play in your community. And a lot of the agendas in different cultures around the world are considered to be like spiritual leaders or to have a certain kind of wisdom. And it's those connections, again, going back to this idea of transing as a verb as opposed to an identity category that I tried to bring to the fore and add to the mix. Because I think we've gotten so stuck on I am this and not that because I say so, which I think is very damaging. And it actually prevents people from connecting to one another in a meaningful way. Because everyone's too scared of getting hurt. Like I have my boundaries and if you cross them, I'm not having any of it. I'm canceling you or whatever. And I understand.
Susie (15:55)
I want to jump in because I'm holding onto this. Thank you so much for sharing this. This is in real time, articulating what frustrates me about verbal labels. It freezes an identity by putting a cognitive English word. It makes it, I think you said it's not a verb anymore.
It's so North American, right? To come from the top, come from the head, rather than what you describe of experiencing yourself, this nameless, visceral pulling towards desire. And so there's so much more freedom and creativity when it comes from the body. It should be impossible to describe. And so, wow, what a perfect problem that we have of saying, well, I'm this and I'm not that and if you say I even that and it we just stay fried up in our anxiety. It keeps me in the job. You know, I'm a therapist.
Iris (17:09)
But I can understand where this tenacity comes from. And you could argue it was somewhat useful at some point to get certain rights and protections for people who needed it. But I think it went from being queer was about what you do, not who you are. Then we kind of use these identity categories as kind of a political tool to get certain rights.
And now instead of saying, okay, it's a political tool, it's not an identity, it's not a box that I need to put myself into, we forgot about the political side of things and got stuck on the box side of things. And now we are dealing with a lot of friction because also if you think about the LGBTQIA community at large, at no point in history really up until very recently, would you find all of these groups in the same room together? Whether because things were racially segregated or gender segregated, this fantasy of having spaces that are comfortable and inclusive for all, it's something that is very, very new. And we have an expectation of full comfort when we go into certain things. It's a very neoliberal thing of like, I decide who I am.
And you have to respect that. And whenever people, and I'm not talking about obviously, you know, the horribly violent instances where people actively are undermining one's identity and values, but I'm talking about, you know, classic example would be like a young queer person talking to an old queer person and because the older queer person does not understand the lingo or might use some words that are now considered offensive, the younger person is like, I'm offended. I can't talk to you. And we lose out on valuable, like community knowledge and information and a valuable lineage because we get so stuck on, on words and on the kind of negatives, the discomfort that comes up instead of thinking about, I'm gaining so much from connecting to this person who, you know, was there and fought for the rights that I have today. So maybe I would, I want to learn a couple of things from them. And I think bringing in perspectives from other parts of the world through film, that's the medium of my choice, I think helps people try to think a little bit outside of the box, or at least I like to hope so. I don't know.
Susie (20:00)
And so here you are in Canada, in Quebec, which is its own scene. How do you know what's going to connect with an audience when you screen something?
Iris (20:14)
I honestly don't. I don't until I'm in the room with people and I hear their responses and I hear people breathing, laughing, crying, gasping together. And that's when I know that my job was well done. I did something that works. And you know, I mostly screen short films for a variety of reasons.
queer and trans people very rarely have the means to make feature films because they're very expensive. But also short films are much harder to find on the internet and watch on your own. So it's creating an opportunity for people to access material that's quite hard to find. But in a program, I can have a film where everyone responds to it in such a visceral way. And then a film that's like, dead, complete quiet.
So it happens. It absolutely does. And I won't know what's going to work and what isn't until I'm there in the room. Because culturally, I'm very much still learning what this place is about, but also pretending that everyone who comes into that room, just because they are based in Montreal, will respond in the same way to the films is obviously a false assumption to make. But it is.
To me, I think it's really beautiful, especially when I screen, because I try to screen content that focuses on pleasure. So I try to integrate films that focus on erotics, pornography, kink, desire, particularly related to the trans community. And those in particular are films that we are not used to watching in a group. It's very uncomfortable for people to be aroused and desiring in a film setting. And I, those are ones that I particularly love screening and paying attention to the audience because what I'm trying to do is desire is such an important tool. I always say that desire is the only thing that gets me doing anything that I would ever do. And that's because desire is such an amazing driving force and it's been taken out of politics. Desire used to be a big part of politics, but it's not anymore. And through my screenings, I kind of hope to bring it back a little bit to kind of create an atmosphere that people want to return to. And then in that way, maybe we can start certain conversations and certain movements or ways of being that are more open to compassion and love and support and solidarity than just being angry at one another for not using the right pronouns or for saying the wrong thing. It is, it is. And it is, you know, it's a different form of of kink almost experiencing these feelings in a group. And I'm always very, very curious to see what people do after the screening. And I'm trying to kind of, yeah, get people to kind of connect and stay and chat as much as possible. So it's also kind of a social event, not just a cultural event, if that makes sense.
Susie (23:47)
as we come to the end of our morsal, is there anything that I should have asked, but I didn't?
Iris (24:13)
No, I think we covered most of it. And I think, as you mentioned at the beginning, I've only been doing this for a year and I have so many incredible and new events coming up. We have a film festival coming up in September.
Susie (24:32)
Yeah, share it. What's going on? When is it? Where is it? What is it?
Iris (24:36)
So it's going to take place between the 19th and the 22nd of September at Espace Transmission in Montreal, which is on Papineau and I can't remember the cross street. But if you Google Espace Transmission, you'll find it. And the festival is going to be four days. And I'm really trying to create a hub where trans and queer people can just come and
be together, not just for two hours, three hours, five hours, but for four days. And that is probably going to completely change the way that I relate to some of your questions. So I guess if we do this again in a year and you maybe ask me the same questions, I might have very different answers because I'm still learning what makes people tick and what is pleasurable for people. And it's a really exciting ride for me to be on.
Susie (25:37)
Thrilling, thrilling. Thank My cup is full. I have so much to chew on. I really appreciate your openness and your passion of making cool stuff happen in this town.