As an 18-year-old newly arrived in New York City, Emmy-nominated filmmaker Zackary Drucker encountered a photograph of European disco icon Amanda Lear and—like so many before her, including David Bowie—was immediately captivated by her beauty, crediting her as her "original trans archetype." Twenty years later, the director was approached by producer Noah Levy with the... Continue Reading →
Welcome to the April edition of The Queer Agenda, The Queer Review’s curated monthly guide to LGBTQ+ cultural happenings in New York City and beyond. April 3-7 - NewFest Queering the Canon: So Obsessed - In-person at BAM, New York & streaming nationwide Courtesy of NewFest. NewFest and BAM's fifth annual retrospective screening series “Queering... Continue Reading →
Award-winning New York cabaret star and actor Kim David Smith's latest concert album, Mostly Marlene, is released on digital and streaming platforms on Friday, March 21st. To celebrate, Smith will perform a show at New York's iconic downtown venue Joe's Pub—where much of the album was recorded live—that same evening. Smith brings charm and wit,... Continue Reading →
In a new interview, Rocky Horror creator Richard O'Brien says that he agrees with someone who once told him that it doesn't matter what he thinks of the cult show and movie now because it doesn't belong to him anymore, it belongs to its fans. It is a sentiment that comes at the end of... Continue Reading →
Receiving its world premiere at SXSW 2025 as part of the festival's Narrative Short Competition, writer-director Andy Reid's Brief Somebodies offers an enticing premise. The film opens with twenty-something actor-filmmaker Joel (Aldrin Bundoc) reviewing self-tape submissions for an unusually personal role he is casting, an actor to play opposite him in a scene that will... Continue Reading →
Jun Li's alluring third feature, Queerpanorama (眾生相), received its world premiere at the 75th Berlinale—aptly enough in the festival's Panorama section—where it was in competition for the 39th Teddy Award. Strikingly shot in black and white, it is a bold and inventive meditation on self-discovery that really got under my skin. The protagonist, listed in... Continue Reading →
Writer-director Lucio Castro follows his acclaimed 2019 debut feature, End of the Century (Fin de siglo), with the brooding and seductively enigmatic After This Death featuring a captivating central performance by Mía Maestro. Reverberating with love and loss, Castro's latest work—which is dedicated to his late mother—received its world premiere at the 75th Berlinale. Maestro... Continue Reading →
Following the world premiere of Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor's poignant and romantic debut feature Dreamers at the 75th Berlinale, the Berlin International Film Festival, where it was in competition for the prestigious queer film Teddy Award, its lead actors Ronkę Adékoluęjo and Ann Akinjirin speak exclusively with The Queer Review's editor James Kleinmann. Loosely based on Gharoro-Akpojotor's... Continue Reading →
Rabbit Rabbit. Welcome to the March (hare) edition of The Queer Agenda, The Queer Review’s curated monthly guide to LGBTQ+ cultural happenings in New York City, Los Angeles, London and beyond. Stay queer and fierce out there. Please Hold (70 mins, 2024) by Alexandra Juhasz premieres at the Parkside Lounge, New York at 5pm on... Continue Reading →
Through her production company, Joi Productions, Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor has produced films such as Rapman's Blue Story starring Michael Ward and Aml Ameen’s Boxing Day, the UK's first all-Black Christmas movie, starring Ameen, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste. In 2020, the filmmaker was named a Screen International Star of Tomorrow and a BAFTA Breakthrough professional, while... Continue Reading →
