Small Town Pride

Small Town Pride offers an intimate look at the joys and challenges of being queer in a small town. Filmed in Alberta, Nova Scotia and the Northwest Territories, the film follows LGBTQ2S+ people and allies as they prepare for their local Pride celebrations. Organizing in church basements, classrooms and around kitchen tables, they take on a conservative town council that won’t fly a rainbow flag and bend some rules to create a safe space for youth to come out. But despite experiences of isolation and discrimination, they love their communities and strive to make them places where everyone, no matter who and how they love, can live and thrive.

  • Chelle Turingan
    Director
    Raising Independent Children: How it’s different in the digital generation (2018), How to Make a Family (in production)
  • Riley Sparks
    Director
  • Corey Misquita
    Director of Photography / Cinematographer
  • Rachel Giese
    Producer
  • Tiffany Hsiung
    Consulting Producer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Genres:
    Social-Political, Gender & Sexuality, Society & Community
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 1 minute
  • Completion Date:
    April 1, 2021
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Country of Filming:
    Canada
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Chelle Turingan, Riley Sparks

Chelle Turingan is a Filipinx-Canadian filmmaker and video journalist based in Toronto. They are a National Magazine Award-winning editor and cinematographer and their work has been featured in publications including Maclean’s, Chatelaine, Today’s Parent, and Sportsnet. Small Town Pride is their first film.

Riley Sparks is a filmmaker and journalist from Vancouver, B.C, now based in Toronto. Previously, he covered international and Canadian news as a video and print journalist for publications including The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star, before focusing on making documentaries. Small Town Pride is his first film.

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Director Statement

I grew up as a closeted queer teenager in Scarborough in the mid-90s. The Toronto suburb wasn't always the easiest place to navigate. But I was fortunate to live minutes away from downtown and Church Street's Gay Village, with ready access to the LGBTQ2S+ community. I didn’t realize how much I took that for granted until I met my partner. She also grew up as a closeted queer teenager in the mid-90s, but in a small town nestled in the Ottawa Valley. This was before GSAs existed in high schools, and before the internet and social media made it easier for us to connect with each other. In 2018, her hometown of Smiths Falls celebrated its first annual Pride. The event moved my partner to tears. "I just never thought I'd ever see this day," she says. That's why Small Town Pride is special to me: it's a love letter to all the queer and trans folks who grew up in small towns—past, present and future. The film offers a chance to reflect on where we are now and where we still need to go and serves as a reminder that the LGBTQ2S+ community is so much larger than our downtown enclaves.
-Chelle Turingan

We often see Pride as it's presented in big urban centres—colourful, loud, exciting; over-the-top affairs with hundreds of thousands in attendance, and an opportunity to be loud and visible on a large scale. There's nothing wrong with that—but in small towns, that's not the most important thing. When you take away the crowds, the concerts, the floats and the corporate sponsorships, what is Pride really all about?

With Small Town Pride, we explore what Pride means in places where the annual parade might be just a few dozen people. We hear from the people working to make their homes more inclusive, safe and open, and about the power of being out and visible in the community—whether it's alongside a million people or just a few.
-Riley Sparks