UPDATE: Screens at the 40th Anniversary Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Film Festival on Wednesday, July 20th at 9:45pm at Directors Guild of America, Theater 1. It’s not easy making a film with an emotionally distanced lead character, an enigma can only be so interesting without letting the audience in, so it’s a real achievement that... Continue Reading →
Mardi Gras Film Festival 2022 Review: Death and Bowling ★★★★
Outfest LA 2021 Audience Award winner, writer-director Lyle Kash Death and Bowling, which gets its Australian premiere at the Mardi Gras Film Festival, is a surprising, surrealistic look at a trans man’s grief and a mediation on trans lives, how gender trans folks are presented on screen and the complex motivation to be seen. Will... Continue Reading →
Mardi Gras Film Festival 2022 Review: Mayfly (Efímera) ★★★1/2
Luis Mariano García’s Mayfly is utterly endearing. A coming-of-age story, sprinkled with magic realism that steps over many of the clichés to deliver a charming take on a well-worn genre. Emillia (Danae Reynaud) is a serious, studious high-schooler with her eyes on the prize of a place at a prestigious architecture school. In the library... Continue Reading →
Mardi Gras Film Festival 2022 Opening Night Film Review: Wildhood ★★★★1/2
This year’s Mardi Gras Film Festival, with a focus on queer Indigenous stories, opens with two-spirit filmmaker Bretten Hannam’s captivating Wildhood, which world premiered at last year's TIFF. Mixed-race two-spirit teenager Link (Phillip Lewitski) and his younger half-brother Travis (Avery Winters-Anthony), leave their abusive white father on a search for Link's long-presumed-dead mother. Along the... Continue Reading →