Jonas Poher Rasmussen's remarkable Flee, which I first saw when it world premiered at Sundance 2021 where it took the festival's World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for Documentary, closes NewFest's 33rd New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival on Sunday October 24th at the SVA Theatre at 7pm. As the film opens a caption tells us that... Continue Reading →
Friday night saw the opening of NewFest's 33rd New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival with Jesse Moss' up close and personal chronicle of LGBTQ+ history in the making, Mayor Pete, at Manhattan's SVA Theatre. Before Pete Buttigieg had officially thrown his hat into the ring as a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, Moss began capturing footage of... Continue Reading →
New Queer Cinema pioneer Todd Haynes' The Velvet Underground, which had its world premiere at Cannes and recently played the New York Film Festival, is an exquisitely crafted, invigorating time capsule which uses music, contemporary film, archive interviews, and present day commentary from those who were there, to immerse us in New York's avant-garde culture... Continue Reading →
Patrick Sammon and Bennett Singer's riveting feature documentary Cured, which opens the fall season of PBS' Independent Lens on Monday October 11th, examines the fascinating chapter in queer history that saw gay liberation activists successfully overturn the US psychiatric profession's classification of homosexuality as a mental illness. Using archive photographs and video footage, recently discovered... Continue Reading →
Harri Shanahan and Sian Williams' feature documentary Rebel Dykes, which receives its Los Angeles premiere at Outfest LA 2021 on Saturday August 14th (also screening virtually August 15th-17th), is a rousing, celebratory, and considered examination of London's rebel dyke subculture of the 1980s and its legacy. The film's punky, DIY aesthetic captures the anarchic spirit... Continue Reading →
Award-winning artist, performer, musician, and filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to Outfest this month with his deeply personal feature North By Current, following its world premiere at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival, where it was nominated for both Best Documentary and a Teddy Award. The raw, unflinching portrait of his Mormon family reeling from tragedy... Continue Reading →
Jeffrey Schwarz, the Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker behind Vito, I Am Divine, and Tab Hunter Confidential, returns to Outfest this month for the world premiere of his latest feature, Boulevard! A Hollywood Story. The fascinating film unearths the little-known attempt by actress Gloria Swanson to stage an original Broadway musical based on the movie she is... Continue Reading →
Emmy-winning director Jamila Wignot's Ailey, a compelling and moving portrait of a towering figure in modern dance, Alvin Ailey, world premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. "Unlike many documentaries about artists, Ailey gives us a substantial insight into his creative process", writes James Kleinmann in his five... Continue Reading →
Angelo Madsen Minax's remarkable documentary feature North By Current—which world premiered at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival, had its US premiere at Tribeca and plays Outfest LA on Sunday August 15th—sees the filmmaker return from Brooklyn, New York to his rural Michigan hometown where his Mormon family is dealing with an unthinkable tragedy. Minax's infant... Continue Reading →
This Pride Month the Criterion Channel is showcasing the Oscar-winning work of filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman with the eight film collection, Pride and Protest. In 1977, Friedman, who was working as an assistant editor in New York, was struck by the power of queer filmmakers putting queer lives on screen when he encountered... Continue Reading →
