Brydie O'Connor's tenderly-crated feature debut Barbara Forever, world premiering in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, is as sensual, intimate and uninhibited as much of the work of its prolific subject, pioneering lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer. Immediately drawing us into Hammer's world, where the personal and artistic are interwoven, we hear... Continue Reading →
Exclusive Interview: filmmaker Cato Kusters on the real-life love story & marriage equality activism that inspired her debut feature Julian
Belgian filmmaker Cato Kusters makes her powerfully affecting feature debut with an adaptation of Fleur Pierets’ acclaimed 2019 book, Julian, a memoir of love, activism, and grief. In 2017, Fleur (Nina Meurisse) and her wife Julian P. Boom (Laurence Roothooft) launched 22 The Project, a performance art piece in which the couple planned to get... Continue Reading →
Mellow Travelers – Film Review: On Swift Horses ★★★
I’ve often wondered what people really mean when they say, “They don’t make movies like they used to”. Are they talking about the scripts, directing, cinematography, subject matter, overall tone or something else? When I look back on films from the 1940s, for example, I often experience empty sound editing, flat staging, and tin-eared dialogue.... Continue Reading →
Film Review: The Wedding Banquet ★★★★
Andrew Ahn's contemporary reworking of Ang Lee's Oscar-nominated classic The Wedding Banquet—with a new screenplay by Ahn co-written with the original film's writer James Schamus—is a delightfully warm and uplifting rom-com with heart and soul, and an ensemble cast to die for. Shifting the setting west from New York to Seattle, Ahn and Schamus also... Continue Reading →
Exclusive Interview: Dreamers stars Ronkę Adékoluęjo & Ann Akinjirin “among trauma there can be joy, laughter & there can also be love”
Following the world premiere of Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor's poignant and romantic debut feature Dreamers at the 75th Berlinale, the Berlin International Film Festival, where it was in competition for the prestigious queer film Teddy Award, its lead actors Ronkę Adékoluęjo and Ann Akinjirin speak exclusively with The Queer Review's editor James Kleinmann. Loosely based on Gharoro-Akpojotor's... Continue Reading →
Exclusive Interview: Dreamers filmmaker Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor “we need to change the conversation about immigration”
Through her production company, Joi Productions, Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor has produced films such as Rapman's Blue Story starring Michael Ward and Aml Ameen’s Boxing Day, the UK's first all-Black Christmas movie, starring Ameen, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste. In 2020, the filmmaker was named a Screen International Star of Tomorrow and a BAFTA Breakthrough professional, while... Continue Reading →
Exclusive Interview: Lesbian Space Princess filmmakers Emma Hough Hobbs & Leela Varghese “it all started with the title, we built the movie around it”
Following this week's world premiere of the hilarious animated scifi musical comedy epic Lesbian Space Princess in the Panorama section at the 75th Berlinale, the Berlin International Film Festival, the film's South Australian writer-director duo Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese speak exclusively with The Queer Review's editor James Kleinmann about bringing their shared vision... Continue Reading →
Exclusive Interview: On Swift Horses director Daniel Minahan “queer people always find each other”
Emmy and Peabody-winning writer, producer, and director Daniel Minahan's screen career spans nearly three decades. His first major credit was as co-screenwriter with Mary Harron on I Shot Andy Warhol in 1996. More recently he directed the Netflix miniseries Halston, and has directed episodes of Fellow Travelers, Ratched, Hollywood, American Crime Story: The Assassination of... Continue Reading →
Exclusive Interview: filmmaker Sacha Polak & star Vicky Knight on Teddy Award-winning queer drama Silver Haze
Filmmaker Sacha Polak and actress Vicky Knight first collaborated on the acclaimed feature Dirty God about an acid attack survivor, which world premiered at Sundance in 2019 and saw Knight named a Breakthrough Brit by BAFTA and receive both Best Actress and Most Promising Newcomer nominations at that year's British Independent Film Awards (BIFA). Silver... Continue Reading →
MQFF33 Film Review: Isla’s Way ★★★1/2
Isla Roberts is what you would call "a character". The octogenarian at the heart of the loving documentary Isla’s Way, is quick with a joke and a raucous laugh, but as the camera lingers and director Marion Pilowsky pushes, it becomes clearer why we are here. Pilowsky doesn’t just want to hear Isla recount her... Continue Reading →
