This year’s ReelOut film festival offers a chance to broaden perspectives and embrace the beauty of stories.
The 26th year of ReelOut, Kingston’s annual queer film festival, is set to take place from Jan 30. to Feb. 8 at The Screening Room and Kingston Frontenac Public Library (KFPL) Central Branch. The theme of this year’s festival is “Rays of Light.” The purpose of the festival is to showcase films that aren’t typically accessible in Kingston, independent artists, and raise profile and visibility for the queer community.
ReelOut is led by Matt Salton, executive director of the festival, as well as Festival Manager Amillia Ho, and Andi Wilder working as the volunteer coordinator—with most of the volunteers being students.
Salton—who has been working with ReelOut for 25 years—discussed the hateful rhetoric and attacks towards the queer community in light of Donald Trump’s inauguration in the United States. As Trump vehemently denies trans people’s existence with consistent attacks, it may feel like a darker moment for the queer community. However, ReelOut pushes against these ideas of hate, negativity, and darkness, right here in Kingston.
“[For the theme], we thought about the whole analogy of a dark theatre and then the rays of light shooting out of a projector onto the screen. We show a lot of films that are empowering, feel-good, and uplifting. We’re really going with light as a symbol of hope, persistence, and solidarity,” Salton said in an interview with The Journal.
The powerful films in question for 2025 ReelOut were chosen by a committee of six volunteers each different ages, backgrounds, and from various walks of life, providing a fresh and unique perspective.
Salton mentioned ReelOut received over 400 international submissions this year, meaning the selection process was broad, intensive, and slightly tedious. This committee, each with a diverse lived experience to reflect the festival’s audience, helps to ensure proper and varying representation for the festival’s films.
Providing representation is one of ReelOut’s main goals. Historically, the Queer community hasn’t been represented within mainstream media outside of stereotypical and negative roles.
It was this queer representation that drew Salton himself to ReelOut. “I knew I was gay—I was preparing to come out of the closet, and I was also a big movie lover. When I saw [ReelOut], I just thought ‘this is my calling.’ I saw myself represented on screen and I hadn’t seen that before […] I still that feeling,” Salton told The Journal.
Not only can audience at ReelOut see themselves reflected through film, but they’re also provided the opportunity to broaden perspectives by learning about other people’s lived experiences.
“I didn’t know or understand what ‘walking a mile in another person’s shoes’ meant until I realized that’s what film is for. I’m walking a mile in this person’s shoes as I’m watching a film. It’s the closest I’m ever going to get to understanding their lived experience for 90 minutes […] I think [empathy] is something we learn as we get older and through our experiences, and film helps you to garner that empathy,” Salton said.
ReelOut isn’t a festival for solely the queer community to enjoy, but rather a festival for all who are open, receptive, and curious about the stories queer people have to share. Watching films and swapping stories encourages empathy which is exactly what’s needed to fight against hate—making ReelOut’s current theme, “Rays of Light,” a relevant and applicable one.
Being part of a film festival like ReelOut inspires community building and togetherness through sharing and experiencing films with people- a privilege that exists outside of solely watching a film.
Salton discussed fond memories of attending San Francisco’s queer film festival, Frameline, where he watched Emma Seligman’s Bottoms (2023) in a packed theatre. Salton found the charged energy of the room and the collective coming togetherness to be “an experience that can’t be beat” something he deeply cherishes about film festivals that digital streaming movies can’t replace.
Salton’s favourite film of ReelOut 2025 is the festival’s closing film- The Muleteer. It’s a film from Mexico, set in the 1930s after the revolution, that follows a young girl, looking for her father, while pretending to be a muleteer, a person who manages mules for the transportation of goods.
“It’s a hard movie to define…The story is riveting- you don’t know where it’s going to go. It transports you out of the doldrums of Canadian winters into a Mexican summer,” Salton said.
Though funding can be hard for a charity like ReelOut, especially after they were removed from the AMS student fees ballot this year after having previously been on this for the past 20 years, the festival brings something irreplaceable to Kingston’s art and community scene.
ing ReelOut means ing human connection, encouraging open discourse between those within and outside the queer community, embracing empathy, and reinforcing positive and diverse representation.
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