Want to dive into the world of drag in Montreal? Québécois drama Solo delivers

Sophie Dupuis's Solo is getting a rare Toronto theatre release this weekend. The Québécois film is set in Montreal's drag scene and won top honours at TIFF — taking home Best Canadian Feature.

It follows young drag star Simon (played by a captivating and vulnerable Théodore Pellerin) as he falls for a new queen and tries to extract love from his famous and disinterested mother.

Writer-director Dupuis got the idea for the film a few years ago while watching Ru Paul's Drag Race.

"I was very admirative of the art form, but I got to listen to them talking about their lives, their family, where they're coming from. I thought there was something to say about that," she said in an interview with CBC News.

And, she was interested in toxic relationships — how they developed, why people stay and what they get out of them, and thought Pellerin, who she worked with twice before, would be perfect in the lead role. 

The film is being released at a time where drag performances are drawing angry protests across Canada and the U.S. (since last year, more than 160 drag events have been targeted, according to GLAAD), and hate crimes targeting LGBTQ people are rising dramatically.

The result is a deep, introspective look at Montreal's drag culture that can help create empathy and understanding. The film had a large LGBQ cast and crew, and Dupuis says it was always intended to have "queer characters but for whom queerness is never an issue."

After writing the film and casting Pellerin in the lead role, she interviewed hundreds of people.

"It was very emotional because people were telling [me] how important that kind of film would be for the culture and even for them — that this was maybe the kind of film that they needed when they were young," said Dupuis.

"And for people behind the camera, I thought it was a good idea to have queer people who know about drag culture and that got the references." 

They created six new drag queens for the show, casting a mix of actors and real-life queens, and had a choreographer come in to help coach actors on dancing and bringing a femininity to their performances.

Montreal-based drag queen Gisèle Lullaby saw the film at an early premiere and said it's a good representation of the Montreal drag scene in the early 2000s, before Ru Paul's Drag Race permeated the culture.

The outfits, makeup and style are very much tied to the early 2000s drag scene in Montreal, she said. Now, it's become a big-budget affair with stoned wigs, elaborate costumes and more expected by audiences. 

"I used to do the old type of drag that was more subtle, more calm, more interpretation and performance, so I think it's a nice point of view," said Lullaby, who competed and won the third season of Canada's Drag Race.