Lynne Fernie

Apples and Oranges is designed to raise children's awareness of the harmful effects of homophobia and gender-related name calling, intolerance, stereotyping and bullying. In the course of a lively in-class discussion among elementary students and an equity educator, children's paintings magically dissolve into two short animated stories. In Anta's Revenge, Anta finds out that creativity--not revenge--is the best way to deal with a school bully who makes fun of her for having two moms. Defying Gravity tells the story of Habib and Jeroux, two skateboarding friends whose relationship comes to a screeching halt when one of them finds out the other is gay.

Documentary profile of writer Jane Rule whose literary career produced a wealth of novels and journalistic pieces which, in the face of Canadian censorship, speak eloquently about the lives of lesbians and gay men.

Ten women, most of them in Vancouver or Toronto, talk about being lesbian in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s: discovering the pulp fiction of the day about women in love, their own first affairs, the pain of breaking up, frequenting gay bars, facing police raids, men's responses, and the etiquette of butch and femme roles. Interspersed among the interviews and archival footage are four dramatized chapters from a pulp novel, "Forbidden Love": Laura leaves her hick town and heads for the city, where she meets Mitch in a bar. Sparks fly, and so do laughter and joy. Ann Bannon, one of the writers of those paperback novels about forbidden love, talks about the genre.