When two-time Grammy nominated songwriter-producer D. Smith, who has appeared on both the Atlanta and Hollywood versions of the reality series Love & Hip Hop, had an idea for a film centering Black transgender sex workers and examining their place within the Black community, she approached several filmmaker friends with the concept. They all turned... 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 →
BFI Flare 2021 Film Review: Rūrangi ★★★★1/2
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 →
Exclusive Interview: Tribeca & Outfest award-winning trans movie Cowboys filmmaker Anna Kerrigan & stars Jillian Bell, Steve Zahn & Sasha Knight
"There's a father and a son on a horse, they're running from something and they're outlaws". That was the first image that came to filmmaker Anna Kerrigan when she began writing the screenplay for her Tribeca and Outfest award-winning feature Cowboys. Joe, beautifully played by newcomer Sasha Knight, is a young trans boy whose gender... Continue Reading →
NewFest 2020 Film Review: Alice Júnior ★★★★
Gil Baroni's Alice Júnior is a neon pink filled delight that stylishly puts the T in teen movie. The dynamic, fast-paced opening sequence, with some great aerial shots by cinematographer Renato Ogata, immediately takes us into the coastal city of Recife in North Eastern Brazil and into the bedroom of the charismatic and self-assured titular... Continue Reading →
Film Review: Cowboys ★★★★
Due to world premiere at last month’s Tribeca, Anna Kerrigan’s contemporary western Cowboys went on to win two jury awards in the festival's U.S. narrative competition, with Steve Zahn taking best actor and Kerrigan winning for her screenplay. As the film opens we take in some breathtaking vistas of rural Montana, beautifully captured by cinematographer John... Continue Reading →