A gay Brooklyn teenager (The Inheritance’s Samuel H. Levine) charts his own sexual awakening and the complexities of his Russian Jewish family in documentarian Eric Steel’s narrative debut Minyan. The work of James Baldwin is certainly in the zeitgeist again as, much like Tomasz Jedrowski's brilliant debut novel Swimming in the Dark, Giovanni’s Room provides... 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 →
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 →
The British Film Institute’s annual LGBTIQ+ film festival Flare is back this month with an exciting lineup of more than 50 feature films, including a few The Queer Review favourites. From March 18th-29th the festival will fill the BFI Southbank with queer cinema, discussions, parties and more. Things kick off with the Opening Night world... Continue Reading →
Following its world premiere at Cannes in 2019 writer/director Levan Akin's gay coming of age drama And Then We Danced went on to enjoy a hugely successful international festival run, including showings at last month's Sundance, picking up awards in cities such as Chicago, New York and Montréal. The premiere in Tbilisi, Georgia, where the... Continue Reading →
This weekend in New York, MIX NYC presents a weekend of Queer Experimental Film Programming at Anthology Film Archives over two evenings. SATURDAY NOVEMBER 23rd: Program One: 7:15-8:30pm “Within There Runs Blood” presented by Eve Oishi and Marisa Hicks-Alcaraz This program represents the vision of two curators whose careers span twenty-five years, beginning with a... Continue Reading →
Author of seven novels including The Beaufort Diaries and Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes and the non-fiction book Real Man Adventures, T Cooper has had his writing appear in publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, Esquire, Harper’s and The Guardian. A graduate of Columbia University, he is currently a professor... Continue Reading →
Mark Blane's semi-autobiographical New York fantasia Cubby toured film festivals this summer, playing at events like OutFest in LA, Frameline in San Francisco, New York's NewFest and Reeling Film Festival in Chicago, among others. It's a film that seems tailor-made for festivals -- quirky, strange, shot on 16mm film, a bit clunky, with subject matter that was never... Continue Reading →
One defining, central fact of most queer lives is some measure of repression and/or trauma during adolescence, some essential hiding of the self that leaves many us grappling for much of the rest of our lives with when, how, to whom, and for what purpose we choose to disclose our various identities to the people... Continue Reading →
