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 →
2020 US Human Rights Watch Film Festival goes digital June 11-20th
The Human Rights Watch Film Festival has announced its first full digital edition. Available nationwide in the USA June 11th - 20th 2020, it will feature free live in-depth online discussions for each of the 11 films with filmmakers, documentary subjects, and Human Rights Watch researchers. The line-up includes David France's Sundance and Teddy award-winning... Continue Reading →
Theatre Review: Coop (Paradise Factory, New York) ★★★★
Developed as a part of Pipeline Theatre Company’s PlayLab, non-binary writer and director Sam Max's darkly comic Coop opens Off-Off-Broadway tonight at Paradise Factory in the East Village. Produced by a queer and femme led creative team, the play stars Latinx, transmasculine actor Lio Mehiel as Avery, a girl who has been isolated from the... Continue Reading →
Exclusive Interview: Composer Paul Englishby on his music for The Inheritance “my feeling was that the music should gently put it’s arm around the audience”
With Matthew Lopez's multi-Olivier winning The Inheritance now in its final weeks on Broadway The Queer Review's editor James Kleinmann spoke exclusively with composer Paul Englishby about creating the play's achingly beautiful music. Scoring for theatre, film, television, dance and opera, Englishby is perhaps best known for his BAFTA-nominated work on BBC's Luther starring Idris Elba. His jazz inflected... Continue Reading →
Exclusive Interview: And Then We Danced filmmaker Levan Akin
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 →
Exclusive Interview: Leave it to Levi star Levi Karter
26 year-old gay porn star Levi Karter is the subject of the surprisingly touching and thought-provoking documentary from CockyBoys Leave It To Levi, which premieres in Hollywood this week. The film, directed by Jake Jaxson, focuses on the fallout when Levi's mother Anne discovered her son was doing porn and her gradual acceptance of his... Continue Reading →
MIX NYC Queer Experimental Film Weekend at Anthology Film Archives Nov 23-24th
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 →
Film Review: Cubby ★★1/2
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 →
NewFest 2019 Film Review: Last Ferry ★★★1/2
Last Ferry is a pulpy thriller serving up Fire Island fantasies with a touch of sexy-psychopath that plays out like a gay urban legend. Joseph (Ramon O. Torres), a young lawyer in Manhattan, drops everything on the spur of the moment to go to Fire Island for the first time - only to find it... Continue Reading →
NewFest 2019 Film Review: Sell By ★★★★
Mike Doyle's directorial debut Sell By opened NewFest 2019 last week in New York City, and it's easy to see why it was given such a prestigious slot. The film is a touching, striking look at modern relationships of many types -- from a 15 year interracial marriage on the outs, to a relationship between two... Continue Reading →
