Writer-director Georgia Oakley’s impressive directorial debut Blue Jean is a compelling character study set in northern England in 1988, as Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government is about to pass the notorious Section 28 of the local Government Act which stigmatized the nation's gay and lesbian population, stoking homophobia—both societal and internal—at the height of the HIV/AIDS... Continue Reading →
Exclusive Interview: Images on which to build, 1970s-1990s curator Ariel Goldberg “it’s about coming together to insist on preserving & activating trans & queer histories”
As we face an onslaught of regressive legislative attacks on LGBTQIA+ life, focused on trans rights, along with reproductive, and voting rights, book bans and restrictions on school curriculums, it can be empowering to look back at the organizing and methods of grassroots trans and queer resistance in previous decades. That was part of the... Continue Reading →
Mardi Gras Film Festival 2023 Review: Outrageous – The Queer History of Australian TV ★★★★
In the 1970s, while the rest of the world was struggling to show LGBTQ+ characters as anything other than jokes or morality tales, one country led the way with fully-fledged gay characters front and centre. Australia’s Number 96 was a sexy soap opera about the lives of people sharing an apartment building, putting sympathetic gay... Continue Reading →
Book Review: A Boy’s Own Story The Graphic Novel ★★★★
Eighties gay-lit classic, A Boy’s Own Story by Edmund White, has been adapted into a gorgeous graphic novel by Michael Carroll, Brian Alessandro, and Igor Karash, that manages to streamline the original book and strike at the heart of White’s autobiographical breakthrough. Opening in the American midwest of the 1950s and jumping forward through time... Continue Reading →
Exclusive Interview: My Policeman director Michael Grandage “I was born into that world where homosexuality was still illegal in England”
Tony and Olivier award-winning veteran theatre director and producer Michael Grandage's poignant sophomore feature film, My Policeman, which received its world premiere at the 47th Toronto International Film Festival, opens in US theaters on October 21st before its global launch on Prime Video on Friday November 4th. Based on the novel by Bethan Roberts, with... Continue Reading →
Outfest LA 2022 Film Review: Art and Pep ★★★1/2
Director Mercedes Kane's touching and surprisingly expansive feature documentary Art and Pep, which received its world premiere at the 40th anniversary Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Film Festival, introduces us to two Chicagoans, Art Johnston and José Pepe Peña, who've been at the centre of the city's queer community together for nearly fifty years. Partners in... Continue Reading →
Outfest LA 2022 Film Review: ALL MAN The International Male Story ★★★★
Following its world premiere at Tribeca last month, directors Bryan Darling and Jesse Finley Reed's delectable ALL MAN: The International Male Story plays the 40th Anniversary Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Film Festival on Saturday, July 16th. The feature documentary chronicles the history of the alluring men's fashion catalogue, International Male, with insights from the insiders... Continue Reading →
Uncovering Australian television’s lost queer history with Andrew Mercado
Australian television has been remarkably queer for a long time. In fact, LGBTQ+ characters and storylines filled Aussie screens decades before they did in the US and UK. Now, one of the first openly gay men on Australian TV is researching that history for a new documentary series, Outrageous: The Queer History of Australian TV.... Continue Reading →
Hugh Nini & Neal Treadwell’s vintage photography book LOVING brought to the screen in breathtaking 100 Years of Men in Love: The Accidental Collection
In October 2020, The Queer Review spoke with Hugh Nini and Neal Treadwell about their stunning book LOVING A Photographic History of Men in Love 1850s-1950s. It's a collection of previously unpublished vernacular photography depicting romantic love between men that powerfully and movingly reasserts both that love is love and that we’ve always been here.... Continue Reading →
Out and About! Archiving LGBTQ+ history at London’s Bishopsgate Institute
From now until Monday, March 21st, London's Bishopsgate Institute takes over The Curve at Barbican Centre, with Out and About!, an archive installation of objects, ephemera, and media highlighting 40 moments and stories in London’s LGBTQ+ history. Bishopsgate Institute has been collecting the lived experiences of everyday people for over a century, and their unique... Continue Reading →