While writing their 2019 memoir High School, Canadian musicians Tegan and Sara Quin joked that their coming-of-age story — which recounts the dual sisters’ lives as queer teens in Nineties Calgary — would make for an awesome TV present.
Soon after the New York Times bestseller was printed, that joke changed into a critical dialog, and the Quin sisters turned their focus to growing a fictional TV sequence by the identical title.
High School premiered on the Toronto International Film Festival in September. It can be obtainable to Canadian audiences Oct. 28 on Prime Video Canada.
“We have been in a position to translate an necessary common story that can also be very particular about twins and turning into artists and queerness and id and friendship, and we’re actually happy with it,” Sara Quin instructed CBC News forward of the present’s premiere.
“If you like the Nineties, you’ll love the TV present,” she mentioned.
“People love the ’90s,” her sister Tegan chimed in.
Playing music collectively since they have been 15
As pop-rockers Tegan and Sara, the duo has received a number of Juno Awards, been nominated for a Grammy and was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize. But the Quins have been enjoying music collectively since they have been 15, when Calgary was an early hotbed for underground indie rock artists.
The present, which was filmed at their Calgary high school, exhibits the fictionalized Quin sisters experimenting with music, protecting their queerness a secret from one another, going to raves and fistfighting in their childhood residence.
Much of that friction is on show in the six-episode sequence, with real-life sisters Railey and Seazynn Gilliland enjoying 15-year-old variations of Tegan and Sara, respectively.
WATCH | The trailer for High School, a TV adaptation of the 2019 memoir:
While Sara is at first decided to go her personal approach — caught up in a secret relationship along with her greatest pal, Phoebe — Tegan feels rejected and outcast by her sister.
“We all the time say to folks … Imagine hanging out along with your sibling on a regular basis and having a job with them,” mentioned Tegan Quin.
“There’s a pure wrestle and there is a pure want to attempt to be your individual particular person if you’re continually grouped collectively.”
Clea Duvall, greatest recognized for starring in the queer cult traditional comedy But I’m a Cheerleader and for steering the Netflix comedy Happiest Season, was a straightforward option to direct and co-write the story with screenwriter Laura Kittrell.
“This was the primary time in our grownup lives actually surrendering our story or our voice to any individual who is not us, and I feel it is a testomony to the belief and the intimacy we’ve with [Duvall] that we may do this,” Sara Quin mentioned.
The present’s soundtrack is an homage to the ’90s growth in indie rock and grunge, that includes songs from The Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day and Slowdive. There’s a nod to Calgary band Red Autumn Fall, a favorite of the Quins throughout their teens.
While queer artists have been more and more seen throughout the ’90s — R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe was an inspiration for a way he dressed and introduced himself — Sara Quin mentioned that she noticed a number of homophobia, “a number of issues that made me afraid.”
“I began to really feel, like, a form of internalized satisfaction, like, ‘Oh my god, nicely, I need to kiss women or I need to gown otherwise than folks suppose I ought to gown.’ So it was actually sophisticated,” she mentioned.
“I feel the present and our story actually simply kind of captures how polarizing that feeling was for queer adolescents in the Nineties.”