Making Summer Qamp connected me with the queer youth I wish I'd had

Cutaways is a personal essay series where Canadian filmmakers tell the story of how their film was made. This TIFF 2023 edition by director Jen Markowitz focuses on their film Summer Qamp.

I spent the past year of my life making the documentary Summer Qamp, based on the experiences of the campers attending Alberta's Camp fYrefly for LGBTQ2S+ youth. Getting to know the campers and learning about their lives brought into sharper focus something about my own: the queer youth I'd experienced was nothing like this.  

Growing up queer in the '90s, I never knew the full scope of what I was lacking. I saw myself in the mirror, and heard the occasional mention of LGBTQ2S+ people in the news, and that was as far as my queer world extended. At the time it felt like … enough. These crumbs of proof that I was valid, and that there were others like me out there, stabilized my faith that I could take up space in this world. But what that space looked like was never tangible. 

The queer representation I saw in movies wasn't often optimistic — a lot of films about death, or being cast away by family and friends. I also often had to sneak into these films because they were rated inappropriate for my age bracket, which only added a layer of shame and guilt to what was already a very secretive experience. And if I did manage to find the occasional queer film that was rated PG, nothing scared me more than the thought of being seen by someone I knew entering or leaving the theatre.

The experience instilled in me a tenacity that has lasted to this day, but it also put my young heart through a stress test that no kid should have to go through — certainly not when they're going to the cinema. 

That I'd look back on these years and notice I'd been deprived of a few key formative experiences was expected. But what took me by surprise was that it would take a group of queer teens in Alberta to help me to see the entirety of the youth that could have been, had I been surrounded by community.

The campers at fYrefly showed a confidence and doggedness I could have only wished for as a kid. Though they are maturing into adults during an era in which the news cycle seems dominated by anti-queer and anti-trans rhetoric, their exuberance for living in the fullest expressions of their queer joy seems to eclipse the constant reminders of the threats they may encounter in the world. While embedded in the wilderness, they were getting their first gender-affirming haircuts, dancing with their crushes, and supporting each other's coming-out journeys. All incredibly impactful moments that they packed up along with their sleeping bags to carry back home to their daily lives.

So much queer affirmation in such a short span of time sometimes made it feel like the camp existed on a metaphorical island, completely separate from these kids' daily lives and challenges. But that wasn't the case. I see proof of this in the updates I get from many of them.

They're starting hormone therapy; they're leading pride parades in their rural towns; they're even making their own films about life as a queer teen. They are moving onwards and upwards into queer adulthood, and demanding that the spaces they enter conform to them instead of squeezing themselves into the available gaps as most of my generation did. If I had known such a vibrant queer youth were possible, my teenage self would have run full speed ahead toward it.  

Summer Qamp is more than a film for me. It changed my life and showed me just how much my era of queers, and those who came before us, can gain from spending time with a generation of queer futures. I'm back at camp this summer as a staff member and the Artist-in-Residence, but my heart's true goal is to once again dive into a re-imagining of my teen years — and find ways to communicate to my younger self that they'll be just fine.

Summer Qamp screens at TIFF 2023 on Thursday, September 14 at 12:45pm.