QUEER CINEMA CLUB presents PORTRAIT OF JASON

Queer Cinema Club returns with one man's gin-soaked, pill-popped view of what it is like to be black and gay in 1960s United States.

"I thought I’d end up as a clown. All clowns are happy and sad. You can sell sex, comedy and a little tragedy — people love to see you suffer, and believe me, I’ve suffered." - Jason Holliday in Portrait of Jason

Queer Cinema Club is more than a film series: it’s a mission to bring Toronto’s LGBTQ folks back together in celebration of some of the best queer cinema ever made.

Every month at the Paradise, curator and host Peter Knegt will be offering queers (and anyone who loves them) a classic queer film along with special guests and performers. Each film will be paired with a different local queer artist, who will design an original poster for the screening.

This month's edition will take us back to 1967 with a film truly unlike anything else: Shirley Clarke's astounding documentary Portrait of Jason. Centered on sex worker and aspiring cabaret performer Jason Holiday (the only person ever on screen), it was shot entirely in a New York City apartment over 12 hours on December 3, 1966. When it was released the following year, legendary Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman called it “the most extraordinary film I’ve seen in my life.”

For decades, the film was thought to have been lost until an original print surfaced in an archive in Wisconsin in 2013. The print was intensively restored thanks to a mass fundraising campaign (donors included actor Steve Buscemi and our very own TIFF Cinematheque), which is why we're lucky enough to be screening it at Queer Cinema Club.

The event's gorgeous dual poster, both literal portraits of Jason Holliday - which will be available for sale at the screening - were created by artist Matthew Le Soleil.