Dr Emily Garside's guide to which HIV/AIDS narratives to read and watch next after Russell T Davies' acclaimed series It's A Sin. There is a vast array of work to choose from. Since the beginning of the AIDS pandemic those affected began telling their stories, both as an act of memorial, remembering those the government... Continue Reading →
SXSW Online 2021 Film Review: Potato Dreams of America ★★★1/2
Writer-director Wes Hurley's Potato Dreams of America, which received its world premiere at SXSW Online 2021, is the inventively told autobiopic of a gay Russian immigrant who falls in love with America as a child through catching pirate television broadcasts of 80s movies as the Iron Curtain falls and emigrates to Seattle when his mother... Continue Reading →
BFI Flare 2021 Film Review: Sublet ★★★★
Veteran Israeli filmmaker Eytan Fox's outstanding new feature Sublet, co-written with Itay Segal, opens with the arrival of a jetlagged and disorientated fifty something gay man, Michael (The Inheritance's John Benjamin Hickey) to bustling Tel Aviv. He's a travel writer for The New York Times who has come to uncover the "real" city over a... Continue Reading →
Film Review: Supernova ★★★★
As writer-director Harry Macqueen's Supernova opens we're invited into the old, now seldom used camper van of pianist Sam (Colin Firth) and writer Tusker (Stanley Tucci), who've been together as a couple for decades, as they head to the Lake District. The rich history of their years together is immediately apparent in their rapport and... Continue Reading →
Sundance 2021: B. Ruby Rich to host Barbed Wire Kisses Redux panel with LGBTQ+ filmmakers
The Sundance Film Festival, which runs January 28th to February 3rd, has just announced this year's series of talks, panels, and events including the lineup for The Big Conversation, discussions that explore what's fuelling the imaginations of today’s independent artists. Among the program is Barbed Wire Kisses Redux which will see film scholar B. Ruby... Continue Reading →
NewFest 2020 Film Review: Sublet ★★★★
Veteran Israeli filmmaker Eytan Fox's outstanding new feature Sublet, co-written with Itay Segal, opens with the arrival of a jetlagged and disorientated fifty something gay man, Michael (The Inheritance's John Benjamin Hickey) to bustling Tel Aviv. He's a travel writer for The New York Times who has come to uncover the "real" city over a... Continue Reading →
Exclusive Interview: queer film historian, archivist & filmmaker Jenni Olson “it’s kind of an amazing achievement to make a sexy 16mm urban landscape film”
This month sees the work of queer experiential filmmaker Jenni Olson celebrated on the Criterion Channel, with a five film retrospective, plus a new insightful interview. Included in the collection are Olson's two features, The Joy of Life (2005) and The Royal Road (2015), which both world premiered at Sundance. These, along with her 1998... Continue Reading →
64th BFI London Film Festival LGBTQ+ highlights
The 64th BFI London Film Festival (LFF) runs from October 7th-18th, and like many other festivals, Covid-19 restrictions mean that it's taking a different form this year. Given current circumstances the 2020 programme offers a reduced number of feature films, just 58, plus collections of short films and experimenta, but with an expanded reach across... Continue Reading →
Exclusive Interview: New Queer Cinema digital pioneer Todd Verow on his latest feature Goodbye Seventies “all of my films have led up to this one”
Todd Verow's 1995 feature debut Frisk elicited strong reactions, resulting in a near riot, when it world premiered on as the closing night of the 19th San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival (now Frameline) at the iconic Castro Theatre, before going on to screen at Sundance, Berlin and Toronto. Based on Dennis Cooper's... Continue Reading →
Oh, Mary! There’s a new trailer for Netflix’s The Boys in the Band
The trailer for director Joe Mantello's new screen adaptation of Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band has just made its debut online. The Ryan Murphy produced film version of this classic play that explores internalised homophobia with poignancy and humour, reunites Mantello with the stellar all gay cast of the Tony-winning 2018 Broadway production.... Continue Reading →
