Lynne Fernie

Last updated
Lynne Fernie
Born1946
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
EducationOntario College of Art and Design University honors graduate
OccupationDocumentary filmmaker
Known for Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives

Lynne Fernie (born 1946) [1] is a Canadian filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist. She spent fourteen years as the Canadian Spectrum programmer for the Hot Docs Festival from 2002 to 2016, and was described as having a passion as "deep as her knowledge," and it was said that her "championing of Canadian documentaries and the people who make them has never wavered." [2]

Contents

Career

Fernie was the co-director with Aerlyn Weissman of the award-winning 1992 documentary film Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives . [3] [4] [5] They also co-directed Fiction and Other Truths: a film about Jane Rule, an award-winning biography about the author and Order of Canada recipient, Jane Rule. [6] [7] [8] Her short films School's Out! (1996) and Apples and Oranges (2003) [1] focus on issues of bullying and homophobia in schools. Apples and Oranges, is a film which was part animation, part documentary, and is for children of an elementary school age. It addressed issues of bullying and homophobia. It was produced by the National Film Board of Canada, with Fernie as director, and Tamara Lynch as producer. In the first segment, Anta, her two moms, and all-girl band work together to overcome a bully. In the second segment, Habib and Jeroux, two skateboarders, deal with homophobia after Jeroux comes out as gay. [9] Forbidden Love was re-released on a streaming service in 2012 to celebrate its " place as an integral part of LGBT film history." [10]

Fernie is a member of numerous arts and LGBT organizations in Toronto. She was a co-founding collective member of the feminist periodical Fireweed and worked as editor and editor-in-chief of the artist-run centre magazine Parallélogrammefor a number of years. She was engaged with LGBTQ+ culture with the Lesbian Organization of Toronto and the Inside Out Film and Video Festival. [1] [11] [12] She was a frequent songwriting lyric writer and collaborator with the pop band Parachute Club, including lyrics for the band's most famous single, "Rise Up" which was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in November 2019. [1] She also wrote lyrics to Neon Blue, the title track for Aaron Davis'first album, and collaborated with Lorraine Segato and Richard Underhill on "Bringing All the Voices Together", a theme song for Jack Layton's campaign in the 2003 New Democratic Party leadership election. [13]

She taught production at the film studies department at York University for eight years, [14] and is a programmer for the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. [14] A portrait of Fernie, by the artist Rafy, is held by The ArQuives: Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives' National Portrait Collection, in honour of her role as a significant builder of LGBT culture and history in Canada. [15] She is interviewed in Matthew Hays' Lambda Literary Award-winning 2007 book The View from Here: Conversations with Gay and Lesbian Filmmakers . [16]

Personal life

Lynne Fernie currently lives in Toronto and her visual art is available through the Oeno Gallery. [17] [2] She is an OCAD honours graduate in addition to being an award-winning documentary filmmaker. [18] She has exhibited visual art and been the recipient of arts and film grants from the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council, and has been a jury member of Canada Council and Ontario Arts Council, specifically the Lesbian and Gay Community Appeal Grant in 1997, Canada Council Research and Development Grant in 1995, the Canada Council “B” Grant in 1989, and the Canada Council Publication Assistance Grant in 1983. [19]

Filmography

Film

TitleYearCredited asRoleNotes
WriterExecutive ProducerAnimation/Art
department		Other
Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives1992NoYesNoYesDirector
Fiction and Other Truths: A Film About Jane Rule1995NoYesNoYesDirector
Portland: Strip City U.S.A./Strange Sisters: The Golden Age of Lesbian Pulp2002NoNoNoYesAs herself
SexTV2002NoNoNoYesAs herself
Fascination2006NoNoNoYesAs herself
Take This Waltz2011YesNoNoNo—

Television

TitleYearCredited asRoleNotes
WriterExecutive ProducerDirectorAnimation/Art
department
QSW: The Rebel Zone2001YesNoNoNoWriter of "Neon Blue"
Little Sister's vs. Big Brother2002NoYesNoNo
Rise Up: Canadian Pop Music in the 1980s2009NoYesNoNo
Katie Chats2015NoNoNoNoAs herself
HotDocs Press Conference Chats 20152015NoNoNoNoAs herself

Awards and nominations

YearOrganizationAwardCategoryWorkResultRef.
1981Ontario Arts CouncilM. Joan Chalmers Awards for Arts Administration, Artistic Direction and Documentary Film and Video [lower-alpha 1] "Picnic in the Drift"Won [lower-alpha 2] [19]
1984 Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Juno Award Composer of the Year "Rise Up"Nominated [2] [lower-alpha 3]
1993 Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television Genie Awards Best Feature Length DocumentaryForbidden Love: The unashamed Stories of Lesbian LivesWon [lower-alpha 4] [2]
1995San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film FestivalAudience AwardBest DocumentaryFiction and Other Truths: A Film About Jane RuleWon [lower-alpha 5] [2]
1996 Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television Genie Awards Best Short DocumentaryFiction and Other Truths: A Film About Jane RuleWon [lower-alpha 6] [2]
L.A OutfestAudience AwardOutstanding Documentary Short FilmFiction and Other Truths: A Film About Jane RuleWon [lower-alpha 7] [2]
Toronto Arts CouncilToronto Arts Council AwardVisual artVisual artWon [19]

Exhibitions

Exhibition NameOrganizerCountryDatesRef
Toronto Survey Exhibition [lower-alpha 8] Women in Focus GalleryVancouver, BC1983 [19]
DesireAlter Eros FestivalGallery 76, Toronto, ON1984 [19]
The Anti-Nuke Show [lower-alpha 9] PowerhouseMontreal, QC1984-1985 [19]
The Gaze [lower-alpha 10] A.R.C.Toronto, ON1985 [19]
Some Uncertain Signs [lower-alpha 11] Plexiboard [lower-alpha 12] Toronto, ON1986 [19]
Sight SpecificA SpaceToronto, ON1987 [19]
Forbidden RepresentationsGalerie SAWOttawa, ON1988 [19]
Go Figure [lower-alpha 13] SPIN GalleryToronto, ON2000 [19]
The Wonders of Animal Instincts [lower-alpha 14] KhromeToronto, ON2001 [19]
Group exhibition curated by Cheryl SourkesAkauToronto, ON2005 [19]
The Grace of Falling [lower-alpha 15] Oeno GalleryPrince Edward County, ON2006 [19]
Defying Gravity2011 [19]
3rd Anniversary Exhibition2012 [19]
Spring Group Exhibition [19]
Decibel2013 [19]

Notes

  1. ↑ Also known as the Chalmers Award
  2. ↑ Also part of a writers grant
  3. ↑ Source incorrectly states it was in 1983 and that she won the award, when she was actually only nominated for it
  4. ↑ Shared with Aerlyn Weissman
  5. ↑ Shared with Aerlyn Weissman
  6. ↑ Shared with Aerlyn Weissman
  7. ↑ Shared with Aerlyn Weissman
  8. ↑ curated by Nancy Nichol
  9. ↑ Show toured Canada
  10. ↑ exhibit in conjunction with the 7th annual conference of the International Gay Association
  11. ↑ text work
  12. ↑ At Yonge St. & Wellesley St
  13. ↑ inaugural group exhibition
  14. ↑ two-person show with Wendy Coburn
  15. ↑ solo exhibition

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michelle Douglas</span> Canadian human rights activist

Michelle D. Douglas is a Canadian human rights activist who launched a landmark legal challenge in the Federal Court of Canada against the military's discriminatory policies against LGBTQ+ service members. Douglas herself served as an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces from 1986 to 1989. She was honourably discharged from the military in 1989 under the military's discriminating "LGBT Purge".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Hislop</span> Canadian politician and activist

George Hislop was one of Canada's most influential gay activists. He was one of the earliest openly gay candidates for political office in Canada, and was a key figure in the early development of Toronto's gay community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The ArQuives</span> Canadian organization that preserves historical LGBT materials

The ArQuives: Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives, formerly known as the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, is a Canadian non-profit organization, founded in 1973 as the Canadian Gay Liberation Movement Archives. The ArQuives acquires, preserves, and provides public access to material and information by and about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and two-spirit communities primarily in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capital Pride (Ottawa)</span> Annual LGBT event in Ottawa, Ontario

Ottawa Capital Pride is an annual LGBT pride event, festival, and parade held in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and Gatineau, Quebec, from mid to late August. Established in 1986, it has evolved into a 7 to 10-day celebration of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, advocating for equality, diversity, and inclusion in the National Capital Region. The festival offers bilingual events in English and French, known as 'Fierté dans la capitale', seamlessly blending local pride with national importance.

Charles David Lubiniecki is a Canadian actor, writer, director and producer, best known for the male lead in the LGBT horror series Dante's Cove. He has also worked as a TV host on a number of shows like F.Y.E!, SpyTV, Bump! and Crash Test Mommy.

Douglas Wilson (1950–1992) was a Canadian gay activist, graduate student, publisher and writer born in Saskatchewan. In 1975, he gained prominence in a fight for gay rights with the University of Saskatchewan. The university's dean of the College of Education refused to allow Wilson into the school system to supervise practice teachers because of his public involvement with the gay liberation movement. Wilson was vice-president of the Gay Community Centre Saskatoon and had been trying to start a gay academic union at the university. The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission failed to protect Wilson and his case was unsuccessful.

<i>Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives</i> 1992 Canadian documentary film directed by Lynne Fernie

Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives is a 1992 Canadian hybrid drama-documentary film about Canadian lesbians navigating their sexuality while homosexuality was still criminalized. Interviews with lesbian elders are juxtaposed with a fictional story, shot in fifties melodrama style, of a small-town girl's first night with another woman. It also inserts covers of lesbian pulp fiction. The film presents the stories of lesbians whose desire for community led them on a search for the few public beer parlours or bars that would tolerate openly queer women in the 1950s and 60s in Canada. It was written and directed by Lynne Fernie and Aerlyn Weissman and featured author Ann Bannon. It premiered at the 1992 Toronto Festival of Festivals and was released in the United States on 4 August 1993. It was produced by Studio D, the women's studio of the National Film Board of Canada.

The View from Here: Conversations with Gay and Lesbian Filmmakers is a book by Canadian film journalist Matthew Hays, published in 2007 by Arsenal Pulp Press.

Aerlyn Weissman is a two-time Genie Award-winning Canadian documentary filmmaker and political activist on behalf of the lesbian community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1992 Toronto International Film Festival</span>

The 17th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) took place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between September 10 and September 19, 1992. Léolo was selected as the opening film.

James Egan was a Canadian LGBT rights activist known for his role in the landmark Supreme Court of Canada case Egan v. Canada. He is considered Canada's first prominent LGBT activist, due to his initial period of activism from 1949 to 1964.

Gens Douglas Hellquist was a Canadian activist and publisher, noted for his prominent role in founding and developing the organized LGBT community in the province of Saskatchewan.

John Alan Lee was a Canadian writer, academic and political activist, best known as an early advocate for LGBT rights in Canada, for his academic research into sociological and psychological aspects of love and sexuality, and for his later-life advocacy of assisted suicide and the right to die.

Khush: South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association was a queer collective activist organization in Canada geared towards South Asian men and women whose goal was to promote a better understanding of South Asian culture and values within the gay and lesbian community.

Barbara Thornborrow is a former private who was involuntarily discharged from the Canadian Armed Forces for being a lesbian in 1977. She later challenged the decision, becoming the first person who was discharged based on their sexual orientation to do so publicly.

Marie Robertson is a Canadian LGBT rights activist. Robertson was a co-founder of multiple LGBT agencies and worked as a counsellor for the AIDS Committee of Toronto. Robertson's portrait was inducted into The ArQuives: Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives in 2002 and she was inducted into the Q Hall of Fame Canada in 2013.

Ruth Dworin is a feminist, women's activist, sound engineer, music producer and concert organizer based in Toronto, Canada. She is the owner of music production company Womynly Way Productions, an important contributor to the women's music scene in Toronto during the 1980s.

Fiction and Other Truths: A Film About Jane Rule is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Lynne Fernie and Aerlyn Weissman and released in 1995. The film is a portrait of influential lesbian writer and anti-censorship activist Jane Rule.

Rebecka Sheffield is an archivist, scholar, and policy advisor. She is a Senior Policy Advisor of the Archives of Ontario and teaches information science in American and Canadian universities.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Fernie, Lynne (b. 1946)". GLBTQ. Archived from the original on December 30, 2008. Retrieved June 3, 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Belik, Vivian (July 20, 2016). "Goodbye, Ms. Fernie". Point of View Magazine. Archived from the original on February 26, 2021. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  3. ↑ Hays, Matthew (April 20, 2017). "Canada's Documentary Essentials: 'Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives'". Point of View Magazine. Archived from the original on September 26, 2021. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  4. ↑ "Now We Are 80 – NFB Top Tens". Point of View Magazine. December 23, 2019. Archived from the original on September 26, 2021. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  5. ↑ Maslin, Janet (August 4, 1993). "Review/Film; Reminiscences About Lesbian First Love". New York Times . Archived from the original on August 20, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  6. ↑ Kempley, Rita (September 14, 1993). "'Forbidden Love' [Review]". Washington Post . Archived from the original on July 9, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  7. ↑ "Forbidden Love". National Film Board of Canada . Archived from the original on June 13, 2021. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  8. ↑ "Lynne Fernie". Film Queer. 30 April 2015. Archived from the original on January 17, 2021. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  9. ↑ Rapp, Linda (2012). "Fernie, Lynne (b. 1946)". In Summers, Claude (ed.). The Queer Encyclopedia of Film and Television. San Francisco, California: Cleis Press Start. p. 138. ISBN   9781573448826.
  10. ↑ "'Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives' re-released on WolfeOnDemand for 20th anniversary!". GLAAD . July 24, 2014. Archived from the original on August 15, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  11. ↑ Dunn, James (October 24, 2019). "Q&A with Lynne Fernie and Nadine Arpin, on the nomination of Eve Zaremba for The National Portrait Collection". The ArQuives: Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives . Archived from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  12. ↑ "Lynne Fernie (1946- )". The ArQuives: Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives . 1998. Archived from the original on September 26, 2021. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  13. ↑ "Jack Layton Wants To Get This Party Started". Carolyn Victoria Mill. January 2003. Archived from the original on June 9, 2012. Retrieved June 3, 2021.
  14. 1 2 "Lynne Fernie". York University Faculty of Fine Arts. Archived from the original on December 12, 2008.
  15. ↑ "Inductee: Lynne Fernie 1946-". Canadian Lesbian+Gay Archives: Keeping Our Stories Alive. Archived from the original on April 6, 2013. Retrieved June 3, 2021.
  16. ↑ Hays, Matthew (2007). "Lynne Fernie and Aerlyn Weissman: Out of the Shadows". The View From Here: Conversations with Gay and Lesbian Filmmakers. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Arsenal Pulp Press. pp. 113–123. ISBN   978-0739483961.
  17. ↑ "Lynne Fernie". EXC-19. Archived from the original on September 26, 2021. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  18. ↑ "Lynne Fernie". Cinema Politica. Archived from the original on September 26, 2021. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  19. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 "Lynne Fernie". masterpiecesolutions. Archived from the original on September 26, 2021. Retrieved June 3, 2021.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.