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Earlier this week, Image+Nation and the SDC du Village announced that there will be an LGBT film screening every Thursday evening in the parc de l’Espoir, on the corner of Sainte-Catherine street and Panet, starting at the end of May.

As a farewell to the Montréal’s littlest cinema salon, Blue Sunshine (which also screens Canadian film classic The Winter Kept Us Warm this Sat. Apr. 28), the rag-tag team from Mascara & Popcorn present new performances by Redhead Burlesque Theatre that promise to be “messy and glamourous and everything in between,” and an ode to queer fashion icon Leigh Bowery.

The paradigm-shifting 1977 film Word is Out was one of the first documentaries about gay people to reach a wide audience. For many, the documentary was the first positive image of gay life that they had ever seen. This queer film classic is being revisited in a new book by American scholar Greg Youmans, who will be in Montréal this weekend for a book signing and rare screening of the film at Cinéma du Parc.

We’ve been hearing about this film for a while now. Xavier Dolan’s Laurence Anyways is the first project he started working on after his 2009 hit I Killed My Mother. While the actual shooting and production had to wait until after 2010′s gorgeous Heartbeats, Laurence Anyways is destined to come to the silver screen later this year. Herewith, an advance look at the online version of the trailer…

The annual art orgy that is the Festival international des films sur l’art (the FIFA) starts tonight, with a ten-day programme of over 200 films to stimulate and entrance Montréal’s art-lovers. Thankfully, our culture-hound staff distilled the most promising of the kaleidoscopic selection of documentaries, and narrowed it down to a LGBT-themed docs you won’t want to miss, covering everything from dance (Wayne McGregor), literature (Maugham, Genet) and that most cherished mass art-form, fashion (Givenchy!). More soon from FIFA’s 2012 selection…

For its forth edition, the Massimadi Festival has a thoughtful home-grown documentary and a host of LGBT feature films filling its exciting programme of Afro-Caribbean cinema. Photo of Alexis Musanganya and Arc-en-ciel d’Afrique members Carlos Ibidouo and Steve François by inkedKenny, special to 2Bmag.

The fourth edition of Massimadi, the local African and Caribbean LGBT film festival, will be coming to the big screen February 6-12 at the ONF, right in time for Black History Month but also for a rightful reminder that LGBT issues prevails in Black communities too.

Image+Nation, Montréal’s LGBT film festival, wrapped up on Sunday night with a colourful appearance by celebrity judge Mado La Motte and performance artist Nathalie Claude (on the bugle). Canadian and Montréal filmmakers were among the winners of both the audience and jury prizes.

Image + Nation 2011 has been ten days of tears, kisses, coming-of-age tales, and only a few yawns. Luckily, to cap it off, the programmers have brought us a gem from Los Angeles, Sheldon Larry’s LEAVE IT ON THE FLOOR, screening at the Hall Theatre, TONIGHT, 8:30pm. THIS WILL SELL OUT!

A moving documentary tribute to one of the reluctant heroes of the AIDS movement, Vito screened last night to an appreciative audience at Image + Nation. A labour of love by Jeffrey Schwarz, assistant editor to the acclaimed film version of Vito Russo’s The Celluloid Closet (Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Freidman, 1995), Schwarz’s ode shows the inspirational ACT-UP co-founder in all his complexity. Review by Conrad Ryan.