Patrick Sammon and Bennett Singer's riveting feature documentary Cured, which had its world premiere at Outfest last week, examines the fascinating chapter in queer history that saw gay liberation activists successfully overturn the US psychiatric profession's classification of homosexuality as a mental illness. Using archive photographs and video footage, recently discovered audio recordings, as well... Continue Reading →
“They always forget the ones who were first,” someone says in voiceover in Joe Castel’s remarkable documentary, Nelly Queen: The Life and Times of José Sarria. After watching this essential record of an important life in the LGBTQ+ community, I doubt anyone will forget him. Sarria’s list of accomplishments include establishing the Imperial Court System,... Continue Reading →
In 1977, Arthur J. Bressan Jr. was promoting his landmark documentary Gay USA (1977) on the gay-centered New York City television program Emerald City TV at the height of gay liberation. He dressed unpretentiously in blue jeans and a t-shirt with long-hair and a mustache that made him look more 1960s San Francisco Haight Ashbury... Continue Reading →
The filmmaking team behind 2016's critically acclaimed, BAFTA nominated Weiner, proved that they were adept at capturing rivetingly unselfconscious, humanising, and often very funny, footage of the former Congressman turned New York mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner. Next for The Fight, directors Eli B. Despres, Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg, joined by executive producer Kerry Washington,... Continue Reading →
Oscar-nominated filmmaker and journalist David France follows his searing AIDS activism documentary, How to Survive a Plague, and the poignant The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, with a deeply unsettling look at Chechnya’s anti-LGBTQ purge. Inspired by Masha Gessen's The New Yorker article Forbidden Letters: The Gay Men Who Fled Chechnya’s Purge, Welcome... Continue Reading →
Selected to play at Mexico's cancelled Guadalajara Film Festival in March, queer director, cinematographer and co-editor Bruno Santamaría's hauntingly beautiful Things We Dare Not Do/Cosas que no hacemos finally premiered in the World Showcase section at the 2020 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, which ran online from May 28th until June 6th. Following his... Continue Reading →
The Human Rights Watch Film Festival has announced its first full digital edition. Available nationwide in the USA June 11th - 20th 2020, it will feature free live in-depth online discussions for each of the 11 films with filmmakers, documentary subjects, and Human Rights Watch researchers. The line-up includes David France's Sundance and Teddy award-winning... Continue Reading →
Due to world premiere at 2020's postponed Tribeca Film Festival, a stunning new documentary co-directed by Michael Seligman and Jennifer Tiexiera, P.S. Burn This Letter Please now streaming on Discovery+, looks back at the lives of several New York drag queens during the 1950s and '60s, and introduces us to some of them now in... Continue Reading →
Update: P.S. Burn This Letter Please is now streaming in the US on Discovery+. The outstanding feature documentary P.S. Burn This Letter Please, which was due to world premiere at this month’s Tribeca Film Festival, uncovers the history of New York’s drag queens of the 1950s and '60s. Following the discovery of a box of... Continue Reading →
Since 1977 San Francisco's Frameline Film Festival has presented LGBTQ+ cinema to a ravenous audience each year. Ravenous? Yes, I meant it. The huge crowds packed into such iconic venues as the palatial Castro Theatre love cinema so much, they'll loudly cheer on what speaks to them. Conversely, you haven't lived until 1400 people hiss... Continue Reading →
