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The image+nation festival is celebrating its 36th anniversary from November 16th to 26th, 2023. Canada’s original LGBT2SQ+ film festival that celebrates new queer storytelling is hosting both a theatrical edition in Montreal and a hybrid edition across Canada. There will also be in-person events and panel discussions along the curated 11 days of programming. Emphasizing diversity through its 175 films, image+nation has showings from over 27 countries, representing all corners of the globe. Other spotlights include Queerment Quebec, Made Au Canada, INDIGIQUEER, and a focus on France in Focus France. 

Opening the festival is the documentary film Marinette, Thursday, November 16th, 19H00 at Cinéma Imperial, which tells the story of Marinette Pinchon, the first French soccer player to sign a professional contract in the U.S, and of the first major French sportswoman to come out as queer. Filmmakers Virginie Verrier and Marinette Pichon will be in attendance. 

The closing event will be the world premiere of Venus Envy: The House of Venus Story, Saturday, November 25th 19H00 at Cinéma Imperial. The film is based on Canada’s multidisciplinary artists whose mission has always been to spread joy while simultaneously opening up discussions about gender expression. Also featured that evening is a one-of-a-kind immersive show and party by legendary art and performance platform, Wiggle.

The section “A Question Of Gender” is back, including the film Close to You starring and produced by Elliot Page. Canada’s lesbian community will also be celebrated and highlighted in the section with a screening of Marusya Bociurkiew’s Analogue Revolution: How Feminist Media Changed the World, which will be preceded by a discussion with the filmmaker and participants. 

Highlighted in the “A Question Of Gender” section was one of the films that I was able to screen, the documentary Summer Qamp from Canadian director Jennifer Markowitz. The film follows the young generation of LGBT2SQ+ youth who live in the conservative communities of southern Alberta, where they might not always be accepted or find friends who are part of their community. However, Camp fYrefly is a bastion of safety during the summer where camp attendees and counselors are all part of a queer community that creates a safe and loving space. Following these campers is a great way to see the evolution of each and everyone’s identity through a safe space, as they gain friends for life that can relate to living as an LGBT2SQ+ youth in a conservative community. Finally, we can see what it means to be yourself and enjoy your youthful years while having friends who accept and help you grow. 

*November 2th 13:00 Salle J A De Sève*

Another documentary that I enjoyed was Studio One Forever from director Marc Saltarelli. From 1974 to 1994, Studio One in West Hollywood was seen as the center of queer nightlife in the city, as well as the staging ground for the rise of LGBTQ rights and fight against the AIDS crisis. On the threat of its demolition, old patrons and workers visit the spot to share fond and not-so-fond memories. One of the issues presented in the film is how the club let in white men only, turning away most African American clients, as well as women. This would only progressively get better as the years moved on and acceptance grew.

One of the hardest and most profound chapters in the film was the “decade from hell” where interviewees reflect on the AIDS epidemic. One former staff member showed a photograph of the 150 staff members, reflecting that there were only two still alive. However, we also see how Studio One hosted benefits for the AIDS crisis, featuring the likes of comedian Joan Rivers. The final moments showcase how Studio One was not just a club, but an institutional landmark whose history and legacy is well worth preserving as the forefront for the LGBT2SQ+ rights movement all these years later. 

*November 18th 19:00 Stock and Soda*

For more information on image+nation programming and tickets, visit: image-nation.org

“The best Montreal show we’ve ever played,” gasped Frozen Soul frontman Chad Green while wiping sweat off his face after a particularly energetic show. The Texas death metal act played at Le Studio TD last Thursday as part of their Assimila-Tour with 200 Stab Wounds, Judiciary, and Tribal Gaze.

Green’s post-show quote was far from hyperbole. Frozen Soul’s massive sound lit a fire under the audience right from the get-go, spinning the pit in an infinite circle while a barrage of crowd surfers launched from either end of the stage like a declaration of war. “You like those big boy riffs, huh?” Green spit as an army of devil horns shot up in his direction.

Frozen Soul have quickly launched up the corpse-orate ladder since their 2019 demo Encased in Ice. Although they deal riffs comparable to Bolt Thrower and other genre legends, Frozen Soul’s dedication to the ice theme has distinguished them from scene rivals. Their most recent Glacial Domination came out through Century Media – a humble brag for a band that otherwise sounds like most modern death metal acts. The ice gimmick was particularly fitting for the Montreal outing, given that the season’s first heavy snowfall hit early that morning, as Montrealers prepare for another deep freeze.

Gimmick or not, the band made their dedication to the local scene clear. Between energetic performances all around from the quintet, Green gave shoutouts to Montreal bands like Despised Icon and Spectral Wound (the latter being quite the underground name). The frontman also manned the venue exit immediately after their set, taking the time to shake hands with fans. Little things like these are what stick in your head after a show, and shed light on why Frozen Soul have been able to make so much headway in the scene.

The band repeatedly filled the show with memorable moments. A push-up competition was sparked halfway through their set, with about 10 sailors in Sanguisugabogg t-shirts dropping to the wet pit floor when prompted by Green. This military exercise definitely did not contribute to the “death metal smell” that was particularly rank at this meetup, a stench the Studio TD cleaning crew are probably still trying to air out of the venue.

Green also made one of the best song introductions possible. He prompted the audience – “Can you guess what the heaviest band of all time is?” After a few drunken callouts, the frontman turned around and slowly lifted his Cannibal Corpse tank, unveiling a Mortician tramp stamp right above his generous posterior. Frozen Soul immediately erupted into a scorching cover of “Witches Coven.”

When Green was asked about how he gets in the zone before a show, he answered “Apex Legends and Magic the Gathering, that’s my pre-game ritual.”

Although 200 Stab Wounds, Judiciary, and Tribal Gaze were nothing to shake a stick at, Frozen Soul’s personality made quite the impression. Make sure to check tour dates for an outing near you.

“Halloween is fucking over!” screamed Fuming Mouth frontman Mark Whelan as he threw a plush Jack Skellington doll onto the stage floor. While the singer/guitarist shouldn’t need an excuse to curb-stomp Halloween decorations that overstay their welcome, the Nov. 3 concert at Foufounes Électriques marks a new era for the group with the release of their sophomore album Last Day of Sun.

I saw the Milford, Massachusetts death/crust act play their first show in Montreal back in 2019. It was the archetypal DIY gig – 50 people packed into the very well-lit basement of a clothing store;  raucous noise elevating fans swinging from the rafters above. Four years later, Fuming Mouth have molted into a new beast – breaking in Foufs’ new Cabaret stage in style (this time there were 100 people there to see them).

Fuming Mouth are currently on the first leg of their North American tour with Final Gasp and Devil Master, burning through 25 cities in 34 days. Despite running larger numbers these days, the band still plays a lot off the cuff. “It’s day four and we’ve changed our setlist three times,” Whelan said with a chuckle. “Last Day of Sun came out today but I wanted to play some songs off The Grand Descent, and it just felt lame next to a song like ‘Out of Time.’” Although still fierce as ever, Whelan works in some melodic Katatonia-esque clean singing on Fuming Mouth’s new record, marking a more mature sound since their 2013 demo. “A lot of our music has just been slamming you against the wall. [...] I think this album having dynamics, no matter how slight they might be, really just gives that impression about how there’s different things going on in the live set now.”

Those singing parts are a real palate cleanser. When the frontman isn’t tuning into his engaging yet punkishly-monotone clean singing voice, he’s bombarding the audience with hellish screams while his eyes widen like some kind of possessed guitar-slinging demon (Last Day of Sun was recorded in Salem, Massachusetts). The stage persona pairs well with the band’s style, cranking out breakdown riffs in a true wall of sound. “It’s my one moment of letting loose and going crazy and just being very aggressive.”

Whelan’s stage energy became infinitely more impressive when he told me about his recent health issues. “I had cancer two years ago, and I did not know.” The 33-year-old frontman was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia, which required a bone marrow transplant to be treated – a procedure Whelan made sound metal as hell. “They basically make it so you have no blood in your body and you’re kinda just like a skeleton, and they put new blood in you.”

“Kill the Disease” off Last Day of Sun touches on Whelan’s battle with cancer, featuring the lyrics “Fear can’t stop me now. I must persevere through all of this sickness. Plague, famine, cancer can’t kill me.” But in a cruel twist of fate, the song was more of a foreshadowing. “I did write the record before I got diagnosed,” Whelan said. “It was supposed to be fictional. And then it kinda just became real where it was the last day of sun, I literally couldn’t go outside because it would reactivate the cancer. [...] I could go out at night and be a vampire, but that’s about it.”

Whelan expressed gratitude for his treatment’s success, enough so that he’s back terrorizing audiences on stage, especially up here in Canada. “I love being able to play shows in cities like this,” he said after raving about the iconic Foufounes Électriques, given the venue’s early role in alt/punk history, hosting hallmark bands like Nirvana and Green Day before their respective pop culture explosions. “That’s the cool thing about Montreal, so many great venues have survived, and there’s a lot across the world that haven’t.”

Last Day of Sun is out now on Nuclear Blast. Make sure to check Fuming Mouth’s tour schedule so you don’t miss out on a date near you.

Alien landscapes mutating into castles of crystals melting into the internal structures of snowflakes, all twirling and collapsing in on themselves, this is the immersive experience of Recombination, the mathematical artist Julius Horsthuis’ fractal-created VFX work.

Montreal’s Société des Arts Technologiques’ (SAT) Satosphere domed projection room presented Horsthuis’s computer-generated psychedelic experience for an audience reclining below on ergonomic bean bag chairs. Horsthuis collaborated with nine of his favourite musicians to produce an hour-long show consisting of nine different ‘songs’, each with distinct fractal patterning and musical compositions ranging from classical orchestras to borderline electronic club tracks. Horsthuis differentiates himself from traditional understandings of art creation and imagination, claiming the worlds he creates are not designed. It is not a journey from his imagination or experiences, but developed from mathematical realities, which he explores and “makes them reveal themselves” as if he were a director or a photographer. 

A large question looming between myself and the transfixing dome above me is, simple in words but complicated to grasp, what is a fractal? Going into this experience, I knew it had something to do with math and connected nature’s talent for pattern creation to the ten-hour-long audio visualization videos popular on YouTube. I was partially expecting a professor and a chalkboard to start the show off with fanciful equations. Unfortunately, there was no explanatory introduction for the simpletons in the audience, just an hour straight of psychedelic shapes and patterns moving around in rainbows of colours, leaving me confused and slightly sedated.

A handful of searches and math class recordings later, I feel partially confident in defining fractals. They are infinitely reproducing patterns produced by lengthy equations with numerical placeholders and font-decreased numbers attached above and below variables. Yeah, I was never popular in math class. These equations produce funky graphs of spiky-looking patterns that you can infinitely zoom into and they will continuously repeat the same geometric pattern as defined by the inputted equation.

This connects to nature via naturally occurring repeating patterns, like broccoli. If you look closely at a broccoli stem, the pattern of branching stems repeats themselves, perhaps not infinitely, but still similar to a fractal. Some mathematical philosophers ponder the whole universe is a fractal, you can see this sentiment reflected in the patterning of rotating galaxies, spiralling snail shells, and branching river systems.

Understanding this, I have a new appreciation for Julius Horsthuis’ fractal creation, by taking empty equations and altering the variables, rates of repetition, colouring, and scale, he is able to create infinitely swirling colourful patterns that would certainly give me vertigo if I was standing. The resulting projections, created by mathematical computing, eerily reflect blood cells in a vein, neon-coloured neurons firing, Star Wars-like landscapes, and floating moss balls, ever mirroring itself and continuing unfolding. At times, it felt like my bean bag chair was in the backseat of a spaceship exploring an alien planet, diving into its cavernous systems of tunnels, or swirling around open space, forever flying into floating multicoloured triangles. 

My experience under the dome validates Horsthuis’ intention of sparking the “flames of imagination” of the viewers, encouraging them to develop their own spiritual meanings of his secular equation directing. He states that the essence of the beauty in his work reflects the “intricate dance of numbers and patterns that govern our world.” The viewer must understand that math is not as far removed from the natural world as it may feel in high school math class. Mathematics is just another lens one can put on to further question and learn from the realities that surround us, fractals play a big part in that.