Inside Out, Canada’s largest 2SLGBTQ+ film festival and single largest promoter and distributor of 2SLGBTQ+ content in Canada, has announced that Virginia Heath's film Mae West: Boxer in a Corset will participate in the festival’s fifth annual Finance Forum during the festival’s 31st year along with eight other feature film projects.
Produced by Edinburgh-based Faction North, Mae West: Boxer in a Corset is a hybrid documentary that reveals Hollywood comedy star Mae West’s personal empathy with Queer and African American cultures in 1920s America and celebrates why her controversial, groundbreaking work as a playwright inspires artists and audiences today.
In AY 2019-20, Heath and Grant Keir of Faction North worked with a group of interdisciplinary students at The Graduate Center, CUNY on the research phase of the film, which resulted in the promotional sizzle trailer. Carolyn A. McDonough, a graduate student in the Digital Humanities program at The Graduate Center, CUNY, covered the research process in the Center's Distributaries blog in January 2021.
IOIFF's list of eight feature films was announced on May 18 in Variety. Mae West: Boxer in a Corset is the only feature documentary to make it on to the chosen project list.
The Finance Forum, taking place online from May 31-June 4, during the festival (running May 27-June 6), will provide 2SLGBTQ+-identified producers and/or producers creating 2SLGBTQ+ content an opportunity to pitch their projects directly to top decision makers.
