Newsletter • Summer 2026

As Summer approaches, I find myself thinking less about visibility, and more about connection. How stories move, how people find each other, how practices survive.

Many of us are navigating a world that feels chaotic, fragmented, accelerated, and increasingly difficult to inhabit in simple ways. Yet beneath the visible surface, quieter streams continue to flow. Artists collaborating across oceans. Community organizers opening doors. Neighbours hosting gatherings. People creating under very different conditions yet somehow find resonance and common ground. This hidden movement of interconnection is very close to what 75 SHOTS has always been about.

This Spring, those currents carried us from in-person encounters to online rooms spanning multiple time zones. We celebrated the European premiere of Map Your Love at the Malmö Queer Film Festival, held conversations across borders, and facilitated our first Pocket Cinema training for queer refugees. Again and again, I am moved by how much resonance exists between people who may never share the same language, passport, politics, or material realities, but who recognize something fundamental in one another. The desire to tell a story, and the capacity to listen to someone else’s.

JOIN THE FEAST | SUBMISSIONS + NOMINATIONS

We are currently seeking new films, artist recommendations, and collaborators who love discovering hidden gems. We welcome submissions from all regions, especially films that expand how queer cinema can look, feel, and move through the world. Regardless of form or genre, non-linear works, unexpected perspectives, and unconventional storytelling hold a special place in our hearts.

Our programming process remains rooted in collective listening. Final selections are reviewed by members living in, or shaped by, contexts of restriction, displacement, or marginalization. This helps ensure the archive remains accountable to the communities it serves. We invite you to recommend new works and become part of our Programming Committee by actively seeking films you believe belong in our collection, alongside productions created through Pocket Cinema training and other inspiring works made by, for, and about queer BIPOC communities.

The Cinema Feast Collection continues to grow. These stories, shaped by relationships, trust, curiosity, and discovery, portray profound humanity. Each month, we add a film that reflects back to us another way of seeing ourselves.

Through our In The Spotlight series, we highlight a filmmaker and film by offering four days of pay-what-you-can viewing, culminating in an exclusive conversation with the director: an opportunity to gather across the globe and discover more about the creative process behind the work.

Our next edition will take place during the second week of June, with a live conversation on Friday, June 12 at noon. More details soon.

By subscribing to Cinema Feast, you help sustain an archive devoted to queer cinema from the Global South and its diasporas, especially works created under censorship, criminalization, displacement, or conditions of invisibility.

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WE PROVIDE THE FILMS. YOU PROVIDE THE WALL.

Some of the most meaningful screenings I have attended happened on alternative and intimate screens. In the streets, bookstores, cafés, living rooms, courtyards, rooftops, basements, and improvised spaces where people stayed long after the film ended.

Across the Global South, queer storytellers continue creating under censorship, criminalization, and social violence. Through 75 SHOTS Pocket Cinema, refugees, migrants, and diaspora filmmakers transform collective texts into short films made on smartphones. This conversation highlights creative resistance, ethical storytelling across borders, and the hidden streams of solidarity that connect artists and communities across distance.

Between June and September, Under The Radar returns to Montréal as part of Fierté’s community programming; an invitation to transform everyday spaces into temporary worlds of film, conversation, and community. Locations remain undisclosed until 24 hours before each event.

If you have a space, or simply an instinct for bringing people together, we want to hear from you.

Host

UPCOMING

This week, we are heading to the Conseil Québécois LGBT Congress in Orford alongside more than 80 organizations, where we will present the 75 SHOTS anthology film, Map Your Love and continue conversations that connect communities through storytelling and lived experience.

This Summer, we will participate in World Pride Amsterdam and the Human Rights Conference. We were selected among more than 400 applicants worldwide to present Storyteller Defenders, a panel bringing together members, collaborators, and allies across geographies. Travel, visas, and access remain real obstacles for grassroots international collaboration. Current donations directly support participation costs for our members.

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ROOTS AND BUDS

This season also marks important moments of transition within the 75 SHOTS circle.

We would like to thank Stephen Lawson, who is stepping down from our Board of Directors after his service, dedication, and belief in the work. Stephen has been part of an important chapter in our growth, and we are deeply grateful for the care, generosity, and commitment he brought to the organization. We wish him continued success and happiness on the journey ahead.

We are also happy to welcome Onyx Borysewicz, our first intern, joining us in Montréal to support communications, outreach, and digital storytelling. Onyx has already brought fresh energy, curiosity, and thoughtful presence into the rhythms of 75 SHOTS, and we are excited to have him with us this Summer.

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75 SHOTS has always been built through relationships: between artists and organizers, neighbours and strangers. Intimate gatherings and global conversations, hidden practices and public encounters.

Thank you for continuing to walk with us. I hope our paths cross this Summer.

One love

Karin Hazé

Founder

75 SHOTS Pocket Cinema