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 →
As someone who has lived in Manhattan throughout the pandemic, the black and white shots of the vacant city streets and landmarks which open David Wexler's Disintegration Loops—world premiering at SXSW Online 2021—struck me as one of the most evocative works I've seen so far that captures a sense of what being here was like... Continue Reading →
Some filmmakers start out small and dream of hitting the big time with a major studio contract. Once they’ve reached that pinnacle, which would no doubt have included great compromise and a whittling away of their authentic voices, some dream of scaling back and making a little indie. Take the Russo Brothers, Joe and Anthony,... 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 →
Tunde Johnson is a normal 17 year old boy. He’s Black; he’s gay; he loves his parents; and he’s been sleeping with the hottest guy in school, even though he’s dating Tunde’s best friend. Oh, and, no matter what he does, every night Tunde is murdered by the Los Angeles Police Department. And then he... Continue Reading →
Anna Kerrigan’s contemporary western Cowboys, which won two jury awards at last year's Tribeca, with Steve Zahn taking best actor and Kerrigan winning for her screenplay and went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at Outfest for newcomer Sasha Knight, is part of the virtual 35th BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival March 17-28th... Continue Reading →
Writer-director Céline Sciamma follows her 2019 Queer Palm-winning masterpiece Portrait of a Lady on Fire with the immensely evocative Petite Maman, which received its world premiere at Berlin today. While Portrait captured the intensity of romantic love between two women, Maman delicately and ingeniously explores the bond between mother and daughter. Eight-year-old Nelly (Joséphine Sanz)... 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 →
Watching Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar reminded me of a conversation I had in 2013 with double Oscar-winning serious acTOR, writer and British national treasure Dame Emma Thompson (name drop clang) about silliness after I told her how silly I thought the film I was about to interview her about (Joel Hopkins'... Continue Reading →
Part of Sundance 2021's Spotlight program, director Mona Fastvold's Queer Lion-winning The World to Come, adapted from a short story by Jim Shepard, immerses us in the bleak daily life of a contemplative mid-nineteenth century woman, Abigail (Katherine Waterston), living on the stark, unforgiving Northeastern frontier with her husband Dyer (Casey Affleck). The film opens... Continue Reading →
