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Hamilton hosts the opening of a film festival honoring sex workers, dubbed a Canadian first.

Hamilton will host the first-ever film festival honoring sex workers; according to the event's organizers, it will be the first of its type in Canada.

  

There will be performances, discussions, and documentaries throughout the two-day Sex Workers' Film and Arts Festival.

The purpose of the event, which opens Thursday night, according to festival organizer Jelena Vermilion, is to highlight the diversity and resiliency of sex workers.

She claims that she started working on the festival over a year ago, drawing inspiration from American activist and late friend Carol Leigh, who founded the first Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival in 1999 in San Francisco.

  

After attending a memorial service for Leigh, who was a trailblazing advocate for sex workers, Vermilion claims she started organizing a Canadian version of the festival. Leigh passed away in November 2022.

Two Hamilton theaters are hosting the festival.

Vermilion stated, "We really want to center the experiences and viewpoints of marginalized people, as well as their humanity, dignity, and sex worker expertise."

According to Vermilion, she is "an aspiring filmmaker" who believes that "the power of media as an opportunity to transform prejudice into empathy" exists.

  

"Georgia Girl," a 2001 documentary on Georgina Beyer, the first openly transgender mayor and member of parliament in history, is on the schedule. Beyer, a former prostitute and performer who passed away last year, was instrumental in the decriminalization of prostitution in the nation.

A rough version of "Manifesting Monica Jones," an American documentary directed by PJ Starr about activist Monica Jones, a sex worker who was arrested for "manifesting prostitution" while attending college, is also on the schedule.

 

A documentary about the experience of strippers during the pandemic lockdowns, produced by the stripper-led Ontario organization Work Safe Tweak Safe, will have its premiere during the festival.

Vermilion stated that a panel discussion with local sex workers will take place on both nights.

She expressed her hope that the festival will expand and one day take place every two years.

Vermilion declared, "We belong here." This is where we've always belonged. We have existed here forever.