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 →
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 →
The British Film Institute has taken the difficult decision to cancel this year's LGBTQI+ Flare festival, two days before it was due to begin "due to the scale and complexity of running a large international film festival with filmmakers set to travel from across the world". In a statement released to media the BFI said,... Continue Reading →
From Sundance 2020, The Queer Review’s editor James Kleinmann spoke exclusively with filmmakers Elegance Bratton and Jovan James about their beautiful short film Buck which had its world premiere at the festival on Sunday night. Partly inspired by the deaths of two young Black men under suspicious circumstances in Los Angeles, Buck follows a young... Continue Reading →
Laurie Lynd’s feature length documentary Killing Patient Zero is a compelling, detailed exploration of how a French Canadian flight attendant, Gaëtan Dugas, came to be branded by the media as ‘Patient Zero’ and was widely blamed for the initial spread of AIDS among gay men in the USA. Based on Richard A. McKay's book Patient... Continue Reading →
Matthew Lopez’s Best Play Olivier award-winning The Inheritance, directed by Stephen Daldry, has arrived on Broadway following last year’s highly acclaimed production at London’s Young Vic and its West End transfer, with many of the original cast. Inspired by E. M. Forster’s novel Howards End, the epic two-part play examines multigenerational gay life in New... Continue Reading →
This Sunday 10th November sees the United States premiere of Laurie Lynd’s Killing Patient Zero at DOC NYC in New York. It’s a compelling exploration of how a French Canadian flight attendant, Gaetan Dugas, came to be branded by the media as ‘Patient Zero’ and was widely blamed for bringing the HIV virus into the... Continue Reading →
Filmmaker Rodney Evans says towards the end of his new feature documentary Vision Portraits that he makes films about the things that he's most fearful of. Here the subject, or the starting point at least, is loss of sight. With under ten percent of vision remaining in each eye, Evans has no peripheral eyesight as... Continue Reading →
This year has already seen a wealth of authentic feeling, stylish screen drama centred on the teenage experience, with the likes of Euphoria and Share examining life in present day USA and now This Is Berlin takes us back to 1980s Mexico City. Xabiani Ponce de León stars as seventeen year-old Carlos, a highschooler unimpressed... Continue Reading →
Are you proud? It’s a simple question with a lot of long and complicated answers, as highlighted in Ashley Joiner’s fascinating but unfocused documentary on the state of the LGBTQ movement in the United Kingdom. The film begins with a personal look at the state of queer Britain in the mid 20th century. A former... Continue Reading →
