Among the queer highlights at last month's SXSW Online 2021 was the short film Femme, by co-writers-directors Ng Choon Ping and Sam H. Freeman. The film stars I May Destroy You's Paapa Essiedu as Jordan, a femme queer man in London who leaves the safety of a night out clubbing with his friends and gets... Continue Reading →
As writer-director Oliver Hermanus' Moffie opens in Apartheid South Africa in 1981, Nicholas (Kai Luke Brümmer) has just turned 16 making him, along with all other white men of his age, eligible for mandatory military service at a time when the country is engaged in a military operation at the border with Soviet-backed Angola in... Continue Reading →
Writer-director Todd Stephens returns to his hometown, and the setting of his 1998 gay coming of age movie Edge of Seventeen—Sandusky, Ohio—for his latest feature Swan Song, which received its world premiere at SXSW Online today. Screen legend Udo Kier stars as Pat Pitsenbarger, a retired gay hairdresser living a monotonous existence in a hospital-like... Continue Reading →
Often films with a message are so busy driving that message home that they become one-note. Rūrangi, which plays this month's virtual 35th BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival, doesn’t fall into that trap. By placing this transgender homecoming tale into a broader, intersectional context of identity—gender, sexual, cultural—it rises above them to become a... Continue Reading →
Veteran Israeli filmmaker Eytan Fox's outstanding new feature Sublet, co-written with Itay Segal, opens with the arrival of a jetlagged and disorientated fifty something gay man, Michael (The Inheritance's John Benjamin Hickey) to bustling Tel Aviv. He's a travel writer for The New York Times who has come to uncover the "real" city over a... Continue Reading →
Frida Kempff's debut narrative feature Knocking (Knackningar), which world premiered at Sundance, is a compelling psychological horror that follows Molly (Cecilia Milocco) in her determination to find the source of the mysterious knocking sounds she can hear from her new apartment, while still grieving the loss of her girlfriend. Read our ★★★★ review of the... Continue Reading →
There is something quintessentially Australian about finding privacy in a wide expanse of nature, and My First Summer uses the depths of Australian forests as a furtive playground for big emotions. A teenage girl, Grace (Maiah Stewardson), witnesses a reclusive writer, Veronica Fox (Edwina Wren), commit suicide in a local lake. She also spies another... Continue Reading →
Queer Screen’s 28th Mardi Gras Film Festival has announced its full lineup of queer treats that will debut both in cinemas in Sydney and online on-demand across Australia from February 18th to March 4th 2021. MGFF will screen 94 films including narrative features, docs, shorts, and episodics, with 70% of those available on-demand. The program... Continue Reading →
Breaking up is hard to do as Swedish filmmaker David Färdmar explores in his brooding bittersweet debut feature Are We Lost Forever premiering in the UK and Ireland via Peccadillo Pictures on DVD, Blu-ray, and digital on Monday January 18th. When we first meet protagonists Adrian (Björn Elgerd) and Hampus (Jonathan Andersson) they're sitting up... Continue Reading →
Legendary drag superstars BenDeLaCreme and Jinkx Monsoon have ruled Christmas the past two seasons with their tour of sold out live show spectaculars, To Jesus, Thanks for Everything! and All I Want for Christmas is Attention. This year, to save us from tears, they're giving us something special, and delivering their distinctive brand of festive... Continue Reading →
