Founded in 2013, GAMERella has spent over ten years building a community of gamers across Canada and in its hometown of Montreal, Quebec. Celebrating over 10 years with thousands of alumni across the country, the GAMERella Game Jam will be happening November 15th and 16th, alongside the 2025 Montreal Games Week. Every year, GAMERella invites game lovers from beginners to experts to join in on the weekend-long game-making workshop, where they team up with other folks to create a game over two days. GAMERella is a springboard for many people interested in the video game industry from underrepresented communities (women, LGBTQ+, neurodivergent, etc.).

In the middle of a dance party, you wouldn’t normally expect the DJ, anchored perfectly in the middle of four CDJs, to pull out a stringed instrument and turn a dance floor into an entranced audience. Yet that is what NGL Flounce did, and it is what I experienced at Newspeak on a chilly Saturday night, courtesy of the Massimadi x Discoño collaboration, an event closing out the 17th edition of the Massimadi film festival. 

The outside of Le Ministère was inconspicuous enough for a Monday. With a few smokers lingering outside and muffled music pouring onto the street, it seemed like any other evening on Saint-Laurent Street. Yet, past the chilly air and into the sweaty, hazy venue, indie pop duo Between Friends brought Montreal into the euphoric, 2000s-fuelled world of their new album, WOW!

Montreal has elected Soraya Martinez Ferrada as mayor. Martinez Ferrada defeated Luc Rabouin and the incumbent party, Projet Montréal.  

“Tonight, it is you who has won. Tonight, Montreal has chosen courage and ambition,” said Martinez Ferrada in her victory speech. 

She promised change after eight years of the last administration. She added voters told her they wanted to be heard. 

Shant Karabajak is a high school teacher by day, teaching seventh and eighth-graders geography and history. Outside of school hours, he is going door to door in Montreal’s Sud-Ouest, campaigning for borough mayor with Transition Montréal.

He moved to the Sud-Ouest at the end of 2017 after a run for a city councillor position in his previous borough of Ahuntsic-Cartierville with the now-defunct Coalition Montréal. In the 2021 election, he ran for borough mayor of Le Plateau-Mont-Royal with Ensemble Montréal. He lost in both elections.