Prolific documentary filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz’s (Vito, I Am Divine) latest feature, Commitment to Life, valuably adds more threads to the tapestry of our understanding of the height of the AIDS crisis in the United States by focusing on Los Angeles and the entertainment industry, in particular the work of the AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA).... Continue Reading →
Exclusive Interview: Patric McCoy on capturing 1980s Black gay Chicago “these men wanted to be seen & documented the way they were”
On his 38th birthday in December 1984, budding photographer Patric McCoy made a commitment to himself that he would carry his 35mm camera with him wherever he went, take at least one shot a day, and stop whatever he was doing if anyone asked him to take their picture and oblige. Four decades on, the... Continue Reading →
HIV+ activist & theatre maker Jeremy Goldstein reflects on his Sydney WorldPride Arts experience
Renowned HIV+ theatre maker and queer arts producer Jeremy Goldstein surveys Sydney WorldPride Arts for The Queer Review, and finds a radically inclusive multi-artform festival of gender, identity, and sexuality. Beyond the Mardi Gras and the usual circuit parties, WorldPride Arts reinvents the harbour city as one of the world’s greatest LGBTQIA+ cultural destinations. I... Continue Reading →
Theatre Review: The Seagull/Woodstock, NY (Pershing Square Signature Center, Off-Broadway) ★★★★
Playwright Thomas Bradshaw retains the spirit of one of Chekhov's most celebrated works while bringing it sharply into present day America with his adaptation, The Seagull/Woodstock, NY, currently receiving its world premiere Off-Broadway produced by The New Group at Pershing Square Signature Center. As the title suggests, the action has been transposed from rural Russia... Continue Reading →
Exclusive Interview: Irish drag star Enda McGrattan aka Veda on HIV documentary How To Tell A Secret “art has always been a part of our activism”
The brilliant hybrid documentary How to Tell a Secret busts open the conversation about HIV in Ireland. Winner of Best Documentary Film at the Irish Film Festival London, the film offers stories of HIV+ people, queer and straight, and the culture of silence that often surrounds them. Breaking through that silence are two activists and podcasters... Continue Reading →
Mardi Gras Film Festival 2023 Review: How to Tell a Secret ★★★★★
How To Tell A Secret is a documentary. How To Tell A Secret is a documentary about the filming of a documentary. How To Tell A Secret is a documentary about the filming of a documentary about the staging of a play. How To Tell A Secret is a documentary about the filming of a... 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 →
Alexis Gregory’s Riot Act returns to West End for World AIDS Day
Following a sell-out Pride 2022 date, writer and performer Alexis Gregory’s critically acclaimed Riot Act returns to the fabulous West End cabaret venue Crazy Coqs for a special performance to mark World AIDS Day on Thursday, December 1st 2022. The hard-hitting, poignant, but outrageously funny verbatim solo-show was created from Gregory’s own interviews with a Stonewall survivor (Michael-Anthony... Continue Reading →
Uncle Charly, Queer Joy Personified – remembering filmmaker Charles Lum (1958 – 2021)
Charles Lum (1958 - 2021) was a New York based artist and filmmaker who died of AIDS-related lymphoma on November 30th, 2021. As an HIV activist and long-term survivor, much of his work deals confrontationally with gay sexuality ethics and how the changing realities of HIV affect culture and personal experience. His shorts include Sex... Continue Reading →
Film Review: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe ★★★★
UPDATE: Aristotle And Dante Discover The Secrets Of The Universe opens in US theaters on September 8th, 2023. When the poignant, defiantly hopeful sound of Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat kicked in early on in writer-director Aitch Alberto's Aristotle And Dante Discover The Secrets Of The Universe, I settled deep down into my seat at... Continue Reading →