Everybody who lived in Edmonton in the 1980s knew it was famous for two things: the mall and the Oilers. What filmmaker and journalist Peter Hays explores in his documentary Flashback , which screens Saturday as part of the Calgary Underground Film Festival (CUFF) is a third thing, namely a dance club that was a safe haven for queer people and their friends. “We (Edmonton) had the world’s largest shopping mall,” said Hays, in an interview with CTV News.
“We had the world’s best hockey team – and we had Flashback. “And I would put them on the same level – and I know there’s some hockey fans who won’t be happy to hear that but the truth is – and I’m a hockey fan too – but the truth is, it changed the culture of Edmonton.” The inspiration for Flashback was Hays’ younger brother Matthew, a journalist and author who teaches film in Montreal and has written for the Globe & Mail , the Guardian and many other publications around the world.
Matthew co-wrote Flashback with Peter and reminisced about the club, which played a huge role in his queer youth coming of age in a province where homophobia was routine and relentless, in a recent online article. “While it was not a utopia, it allowed queer people a crucial space of resistance,” he adds. “The documentary Flashback is an ode to that spirit of resistance and resilience.
” “As queer youth, we had been told repeatedly that our lives would be miserable and not worth living. We did what many queer .
