Imagine feeling left out...

Organizers of this year's annual Image&Nation queer film festival couldn't be happier with their swelling numbers. A record 16,000 people attended the celebration of bent celluloid, which wrapped last Sunday, October 3.

But some in Montreal's queer community aren't feeling quite so, well, gay about it all. Disabled people say they've been shut out of the fest due to the fact that this year's event was held entirely at the downtown Parisien Cinema--a venue with no elevator, and thus no wheelchair accessibility.

"As lesbians with disabilities, we are outraged," reads a memo, sent out via fax and on the Internet. Nathalie Leveille, who co-authored the diatribe against Image&Nation and organized a protest during the last three nights of the fest, says the exclusion of disabled queers is inexcusable. "I spoke with them about this last year," she insists. "There was no way for many of us to get up to the films."

Festival director Charlie Boudreau says she and other organizers did their very best to make it completely wheelchair accessible. She says many downtown venues don't have elevators and thus aren't an option for the wheelchair-bound. And she tried to shift responsibility to the government. "I wish people would write to SODEC or the Minister of Culture about this," she says. "We are one of the biggest film fests in this city, yet we receive no government funding whatsoever." :

--Matthew Hays

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