Director-producer-editor-colorist-composer Sterling Hampton IV's Merman is a poignant, beautifully layered portrait of André Chambers, a 58-year-old Black queer man living in Palm Springs, where the 11-minute short film was shot on location, featuring some stunning desert scapes. In its specificity about André's life, the Holly Shorts Social Impact Award-winning film is a powerful reminder of... Continue Reading →
GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics has just announced the nominees across 21 categories in its 15th annual Dorian Film Awards, voted for by the group's more than 500 members made up of LGBTQIA+ identifying media professionals. Andrew Haigh’s powerful All of Us Strangers leads with nine nominations including Film of the Year, LGBTQ... Continue Reading →
Brooklyn-based photographer Benjamin Fredrickson expands upon the tradition of portraiture created with analog film cameras by documenting the queer fetish communities that he is a part of. His work—which has been published in BUTT Magazine, Dazed, i-D, Interview, and The New Yorker—powerfully contributes to conversations around breaking down stigmas attached to HIV, sex work, and... Continue Reading →
Writer-director Gabriel Carrubba's atmospheric and touching queer coming-of-age debut feature Sunflower has been lighting up the Australian festival circuit, including screenings at Sydney Film Festival, the Melbourne International Film Festival, and Cinefest Oz. This month it plays Queer Screen's 31st Mardi Gras Film Festival, which runs in cinemas in Sydney February 15th – 29th, with... Continue Reading →
Even Before the show's exhilarating, propulsive opening ensemble number "The Gospel" is over, it is clear that this is going to be a special night. Alicia Keys' 12-years-in-the-making loosely autobiographical musical, Hell's Kitchen, with a book by Pulitzer Prize-finalist playwright Kristoffer Diaz, is a breathtaking triumph. No wonder a Broadway transfer from its extended sell-out... Continue Reading →
SAPPH-O-RAMA, a 30-film series exploring the eccentric, enduring, and genre-encompassing history of the lesbian image in cinema runs at New York City's Film Forum from Friday, February 2nd through Tuesday, February 13th, 2024. This swoon-worthy celebration of the sapphic canon—groundbreaking, cult favorite, or under-seen selections from the silent era to present day—includes films by Dorothy... Continue Reading →
Emmy-nominated editor Carla Gutiérrez, who cut the Oscar-nominated films RBG and La Corona, as well as the LGBTQ+ documentary Pray Away, makes her directorial debut with the exquisite Frida, which premiered in the US Documentary Competition at Sundance, and went on to win the festival's Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award. The film's beautifully expressive animated opening... Continue Reading →
Writer-director Mikko Mäkelä's brooding sophomore feature Sebastian, which premiered in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the 40th Sundance Film Festival, captivatingly explores the creative process and contemporary conversations around authenticity and authorship. Ruaridh Mollica in Mikko Mäkelä's Sebastian. Courtesy of Kino Lorber. As the film opens, we meet an inexperienced sex worker, Sebastian, as... Continue Reading →
Theda Hammel returns to Sundance following her 2022 TV pilot My Trip To Spain, with her feature debut as writer-director-composer-editor and star, Stress Positions, playing in the festival's US Dramatic Competition. With its dry, sometimes uncomfortable tone, that easily shifts from offbeat to satirical to absurd to farcical, this deliciously dark, thought-provoking comedy sees her... Continue Reading →
Writer-director-editor Jules Rosskam's Desire Lines, which received its world premiere in the NEXT section at the 40th Sundance Film Festival and won the NEXT Special Jury Award, boldly forges its own hybrid form to explore intimate stories of transmasculine sexuality from the past and present. In the narrative fiction strand of the film (written by... Continue Reading →
