The Fruit Machine

Directed by Sarah Fodey | 2018 | Canada | 90 min

Screening presented in partnership with Edmonton Pride Centre & Edmonton Pride Festival

After the Second World War, Canada began investigating federal employees who might be susceptible to blackmail by Soviet spies. Homosexuality, then considered a “character weakness", was grounds for surveillance and interrogation by the RCMP.

The Department of National Defense shared the RCMP’s conservative mindset, and over the course of four decades, thousands of men and women had their privacy invaded and their careers ruined. They were interrogated, threatened, and manipulated. Many suffered psychological effects; some took their own lives.

The Fruit Machine blows the lid off of one of the most heinous and shocking invasion of privacy campaigns in Canada’s history.

Preceded by the short film: Women: Beyond the Lables

Directed by Julie Vaillancourt | 2018 | Canada | 4 min

At a time when the LGBTQ+ community wants to be more inclusive of the various identities, the RLQ/QLN - Quebec Lesbian Network wishes to put forward the realities of sexually diverse women. This short experimental film highlights the complexity of this reflection