Illuminating Liberation

Parade is a powerful documentary about a Canadian social movement that swept gay people into the streets to fight repression. You’ve crafted a film that makes the cause for gay liberation come alive again with stories from the late 1960s and ’70s. Can you discuss your role as writer and director? 

I embodied a peacock-capped “majorette” with my baton — debating with my colleagues over which chapters would resonate most with audiences and in what order these scenes would bustle down the timeline of our documentary. Who should speak to what issues. I became a conduit for our film’s 40-plus interviewees so these activists could tell their own stories interwoven with other voices.

Your film is engaging in part because of the flow of black-and-white and colour footage from archival material. Parade seems particularly relevant during the current backlash against queer and trans rights. What was your strategy in representing the backlash in a legacy documentary?

Parade reminds Canadians that the high-water marks we’ve achieved in terms of freedom are diaphanous. History permeates and shifts our present moment. I live across from Manitoba’s legislature, the site of early gay-rights demos during the 1970s. It’s where, in 2024, a queer-led counter-protest against the contemporary rally, an anti-trans conglomeration of religious conservatives, returned to the exact same location on the steps of the legislature. I showed the camera operators the old photos of the same columns and granite steps and the building overflowing with bygone activists in bell-bottoms. The editor framed up the contemporary rally with the archival photos. It made for an effective finale.