"The 2026 Cannes Film Festival is just around the corner, and with buzz building around the many features set to make their debut at the prestigious French soirée, we're finally- finally! -learning more about what should be one of the best & gayest movies at the fest. Premiering on May 20, The Man I Love is the latest from gay filmmaker Ira Sachs ( Passages, Love Is Strange). It's been described as a "musical fantasia" set in 1980s downtown NYC about an artist who "experiences a precious window between sickness and mortality-a time when beauty and love remain within reach.""
"What it's previously not been described as, however, is a film about queer people living through the AIDS crisis. Even though that's very much what it is! As we've reported, prior coverage of The Man I Love has curiously avoided mentioning the words "queer" or "AIDS" at all. If you just took Variety's writing on the film at face value, for example, you'd have no clue it was meant to be a portrait of a gay man who pushed himself to make art, to live life to the fullest, even as he succumbed to the disease."
"So, what was going on? Were we regressing to a point when mainstream media was afraid to say gay, or all to willing to erase or ignore a crucial piece of our community's history? Of course, we had some context clues: We found a casting call from the film that was specifically scouting for LGBTQ+ people to be featured talent or background extras. Not to mention, Sachs is an out, gay filmmaker whose work almost always incorporates queer themes, and who even lived in NYC during the AIDS epidemic. It felt like he was setting out to tell a personal story of a time & place that still felt fresh in his mind"
The Man I Love premieres May 20 at the Cannes Film Festival. The film is a musical fantasia set in 1980s downtown New York, following an artist who experiences a precious window between sickness and mortality. Beauty and love remain within reach even as the artist succumbs to disease. The story is explicitly about queer people living through the AIDS crisis, despite earlier coverage that avoided the terms “queer” and “AIDS.” Casting materials sought LGBTQ+ people for featured and background roles. Ira Sachs, an out gay filmmaker who lived in New York during the AIDS epidemic, draws on personal memory to tell a story tied to that time and place.
Read at Queerty
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