May 13, 2014 – Toronto – National Film Board of Canada
One of the most acclaimed productions from the National Film Board of Canada’s legendary women’s studio and a landmark work of lesbian cinema, Aerlyn Weissman and Lynne Fernie’s Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives is being re-released in a new, remastered HD version.
Starting May 20, this award-winning feature documentary can be digitally purchased or rented, or ordered on DVD, at NFB.ca. The remastered version will also feature a new French subtitles option.
Following its online launch, the remastered Forbidden Love will debut on the big screen on May 25 at TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto, as part of the Inside Out Toronto LGBT Festival. Co-director Lynne Fernie will be in conversation with NOW Magazine’s Susan G. Cole after the screening, which is a co-presentation of Inside Out, the Sixteenth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, the NFB, and Women in View.
Compelling, often hilarious and always rebellious, the women interviewed in Forbidden Love recount stories about their first loves and their search for the places where openly gay women gathered in the mid-20th century. Against a soundtrack of pop hits and a backdrop of pulp novel covers, archival footage, and tabloid headlines, these women’s coming-of-age experiences in the 1950s and ’60s are explored with grace, humour, and irreverence. With the candour of survivors of struggle, the women offer an affecting portrait of a community once consigned to silence and exile.
Produced in 1992 by Studio D, the women’s studio of the NFB, Forbidden Love won the Genie Award for best feature documentary, the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film (Documentary) as well as the Public Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary at the Festival international de films de Femmes in Créteil, France.
For downloadable hi-res images, go to <onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/press-room/photo-gallery/>.
Associated Links
Inside Out Film and Video Festival: http://insideout.ca/initiatives/toronto
Women in View: http://www.womeninview.ca/
Sixteenth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women: http://berks2014.com/
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Media Relations
Jennifer Mair
NFB Publicist
Tel.: 416-954-2045
Cell: 416-436-0105
E-mail: j.mair@nfb.ca
Lily Robert
Director, Corporate Communications, NFB
Tel.: 514-283-3838
Cell: 514-296-8261
E-mail: l.robert@nfb.ca
About the NFB
Beginning May 2, 2014, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) marks 75 years of innovation and leadership in social-issue documentaries, auteur animation, and most recently, groundbreaking interactive works. The NFB has produced over 13,000 productions and won over 5,000 awards, including 8 Webbys, 9 Canadian Screen Awards, 12 Oscars and more than 90 Genies. To access acclaimed NFB content, visit NFB.ca or download its apps for smartphones, tablets and connected TV.
