Early noughties indie rock pic, We Forgot To Break Up, tells the story of the band The New Normals as they rise from high school friends to rock stardom before the emotions that fuel their music start to rip them apart. Adapted from Kayt Burgess’ novel, Heidegger Stairwell, there are some familiar beats here, from... Continue Reading →
MGFF 2025 Film Review: Riley ★★★½
Star high school football player Dakota Riley (Jake Holley) is feeling the pressure. His girlfriend Skylar (Riley Quinn Scott) wants to have sex, but he’s resisting. His best friend Jaeden (Colin McCalla), who is temporarily living with him, seems to be sending out flirty vibes. While his former star-athlete dad Carson (Rib Hillis), who is... Continue Reading →
MGFF 2025 Film Review: In Ashes (Se Gennem Aske) ★★★★
Danish drama In Ashes (Se Gennem Aske), which world premieres at Queer Screen's Mardi Gras Film Festival, follows a gay young man struggling to come to terms with his first heartbreak. Writer-director Ludvig C. Poulsen leaves the audience grasping for details as they are gradually revealed, forming an incomplete but fraught picture of modern love.... Continue Reading →
MGFF 2025 Film Review: The Last Taboo (Das letzte Tabu) ★★★
Things are ominous in Manfred Oldenburg’s documentary The Last Taboo (Das letzte Tabu), which explores the lives of gay football (soccer) players. Assembling most of the currently publicly-identifying gay players, along with sports commentators, psychologists, and campaigners, Oldenburg takes us through the tragic history of out players and the current state of the game. Despite... Continue Reading →
MGFF 2025 Film Review: The Writer (Rašytojas) ★★★½
Two former lovers reconnect in New York City after decades apart in director Romas Zabarauskas' fourth feature The Writer (Kirjanik). Lithuanian author Kostas (Bruce Ross) has written a novel that fictionalizes elements of his life and that of his old flame, Russian-born Lithuanian Dima (Jamie Day). Between the two men there lingers a melancholy and... Continue Reading →
MGFF 2025 Film Review: Duino ★★★★
Oscar Wilde once called homosexuality “the love that dare not speak its name” (technically, he was quoting his lover Bosie), and that’s the energy that infuses Duino, the debut feature from actor-turned-filmmaker Juan Pablo Di Pace (The Mattachine Family) and editor-director Andrés Pepe Estrada (Argentina, 1985). It’s a contemplative tale of lost gay love that... Continue Reading →
MGFF 2025 Film Review: High Tide ★★★½
Writer-director Marco Calvani's sweet-hearted emotional drama High Tide succeeds largely thanks to the excellent and honest lead performance by Marco Pigossi as Lourenço, a gay Brazilian in Provincetown left adrift by a series of life events. Stranded in P'town, Lourenço is making a living doing under the table work as a cleaner and handyman. He... Continue Reading →
MGFF 2025 Film Review: Sally! ★★★½
Bubbling with radical feminism and a generous dose of cheek, Sally! captures the charisma and passion of the late lesbian activist Sally Miller Gearhart through political struggles and personal heartache. It’s a wild ride. Director Deborah Craig, along with co-directors Jörg Fockele and Ondine Rarey, deliver a lively and warm documentary through which Gearhart refuses... Continue Reading →
MGFF 2025 Film Review: Drive Back Home ★★★½
There is an undeniable, gentle warmth to Michael Clowater’s Drive Back Home that defies the frozen Canadian winter backdrop. As two estranged middle-aged brothers reconnect on a long drive from Toronto to the icy New Brunswick countryside—with a few stops along the way—touchingly, the bond between them begins to thaw. Based on true events from... Continue Reading →
Sundance Film Review: Plainclothes ★★★
Writer-director Carmen Emmi's debut feature Plainclothes, which world premiered at Sundance 2025, winning the festival's US Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast, has an enticing premise. In Syracuse, Upstate New York, a young police officer, Lucas (Tom Blyth), has been placed on undercover "plainclothes" duty tasked with entrapping gay men. The assignment involves lingering... Continue Reading →
