The OUTeast Film Festival kicks off on Thursday and has some excellent films on its slate this year. I’ve picked what I think is the outstanding film on each day, but do check the program as there are many more screenings than what I’ve listed here:

• The opening night gala is The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, an extremely well-reviewed doc that, in the course of unfolding an investigation into the still-unsolved death of the trans icon, “argues that, with regards to the LGBT movement of the past few decades, the most ostracized and demonized faction continues to be transgender people.”
• Friday night the later screening is Tom of Finland, a biopic with a “lightly sanitized tone that feels oddly ill-suited to its protagonist’s own supercharged porno-fascistic reveries,” but which is “handsome, smoothly executed and eager to entertain.”
• Saturday’s highlight may well be A Date for Mad Mary, an Irish coming-of-age dramedy not directed by John Carney, which is “perhaps not the most original film you’ll see all year, but very possibly the most instantly lovable.”
• Sunday’s after-party free screening at Good Robot is a 20th-anniversary quote-along showing of Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion.
• In theatres, seen and recommended:
  • I, Daniel Blake, Ken Loach, UK/France/Belgium, 2016, 100 minutes — Halifax showtimes
• In theatres, notable:
  • Maudie, Aisling Walsh, Ireland/Canada, 2016, 115 minutes [60] — Halifax showtimes

• Halifax screenings this week:
  • Thursday (Jun 15) — The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, Central Library, 8pm, $15. David France, USA, 2017, 105 minutes.
  • Friday (Jun 16) — Tom of Finland, Museum of Natural History, 9pm, $12. Dome Karukoski, Finland/Sweden/Denmark/Germany/USA, 2017, 115 minutes.
  • Saturday (Jun 17) — A Date for Mad Mary, Museum of Natural History, 7pm, $12. Darren Thornton, Ireland, 2016, 82 minutes.
  • Sunday (Jun 18) — Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (quote-along screening), Good Robot Brewing Company, 8:30pm, free. David Mirkin, USA, 1997, 97 minutes.