Writer-director Mikko Mäkelä's brooding sophomore feature Sebastian, which premiered in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the 40th Sundance Film Festival, captivatingly explores the creative process and contemporary conversations around authenticity and authorship. Ruaridh Mollica in Mikko Mäkelä's Sebastian. Courtesy of Kino Lorber. As the film opens, we meet an inexperienced sex worker, Sebastian, as... Continue Reading →
Theda Hammel returns to Sundance following her 2022 TV pilot My Trip To Spain, with her feature debut as writer-director-composer-editor and star, Stress Positions, playing in the festival's US Dramatic Competition. With its dry, sometimes uncomfortable tone, that easily shifts from offbeat to satirical to absurd to farcical, this deliciously dark, thought-provoking comedy sees her... Continue Reading →
Writer-director-editor Jules Rosskam's Desire Lines, which received its world premiere in the NEXT section at the 40th Sundance Film Festival and won the NEXT Special Jury Award, boldly forges its own hybrid form to explore intimate stories of transmasculine sexuality from the past and present. In the narrative fiction strand of the film (written by... Continue Reading →
"We're all born naked and the rest is drag", RuPaul has been pointing out for decades. British-Iraqi-Egyptian filmmaker Amrou Al-Kadhi's assured feature directorial and screenwriting debut Layla, which just premiered in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at Sundance, could be seen as an engaging narrative thesis on that playful, but astute observation. As the film... Continue Reading →
Director Esteban Arango returns to Sundance with his riveting, stylish, and kinetic sophomore feature Ponyboi, which just received its world premiere in the US Dramatic Competition at the 40th edition of the festival. Written, produced by, and starring queer intersex nonbinary Latinx model, actor, and activist River Gallo, the seeds of the film were in... Continue Reading →
The career of Noël Coward, the poster boy for aristocratic, quick-witted, camp British queerness, is explored in filmmaker Barnaby Thompson’s brief, but charming and amusing overview of a truly brilliant life, Mad About The Boy: The Noël Coward Story, playing Queer Screen's 31st Mardi Gras Film Festival. Mad About the Boy: The Noel Coward Story... Continue Reading →
Daishi Matsunaga's fourth dramatic feature, Egoist—which world premiered at the Toyko International Film Festival and makes its Australian debut at Queer Screen's 31st Mardi Gras Film Festival—takes a successful gay man in his 30s and leads him to unexpected places as he looks for, pays for, and eventually discovers the love he needs. Saitô Kôsuke... Continue Reading →
Executive produced by Dev Patel, Raghuvir Joshi’s Sahela (Companion) moves its “coming out” narrative away from Sydney’s beaches and the queer life of Oxford Street, to the city’s geographical centre, Parramatta, and its Indian-Australian community. Vir Oza (Antonio Aakeel) and Nitya Behl (Anula Navlekar) are a young married couple still in their “honeymoon phase”. Living... Continue Reading →
It is the potent combination of small, real moments that build to make A Portrait of Love a slow-burning heartbreaker. Along the way, we are immersed in the life, love, and creative process of Australian artist Craig Ruddy, through the lens of his partner of twenty years, Roberto Meza Mont. Best known for winning Australia’s... Continue Reading →
Combining traditional 2D animation with rotoscoped footage ala Richard Linklater’s Waking Life, Carl Joseph E. Papa's The Missing (Iti mapukpukaw) looks beautiful, while beneath its colourful surface, a much darker story packs a powerful punch. Eric (Carlo Aquino) is a young computer animator, working long hours with Carlos (Gio Gahol). Eric is mute—he literally does... Continue Reading →
