At the 78th Academy Awards ceremony in 2005, trailblazing LGBTQ+ movie Brokeback Mountain made history when it garnered three Oscars from eight nominations. It was a seismic moment for LGBTQ+ cinema at the Oscars, Hollywood's most glitzy, glamorous night of the year. Up until that point, films that celebrated the beauty and complexity of the queer experience had largely been ignored, bar a few notable exceptions.
Saad (Mehdi Meskar) is a young Moroccan exile in Quebec who will do anything to save Reza (Aron Archer), his Iranian refugee lover who faces being sent back to his home country. In a desperate move, Saad sets out to seduce a high-ranking spokesperson (played by Alexandre Landry) from the ministry of immigration in a risky gambit that sets off a fateful chain of events.
Another Sundance Film Festival has come & gone, but this time, as the red carpets get rolled up and we put our snow boots back in storage, we're also saying goodbye to Park City, Utah, the fest's historic home since it was founded over 40 years ago by the late Robert Redford. And though its new location in Boulder, Colorado promises to take the annual celebration of independent cinema to a state decidedly
The Frameline Award, which has not been given out since 2019, is given to a person or entity that has made a major contribution to LGBTQ+ representation in film, television, or the media arts. And this year it will be bestowed on filmmaker, writer, and visual artist John Waters during a special presentation on March 17 to kick off Frameline's 50th anniversary season. The event will also feature a screening of Waters's 1994 classic , starring Kathleen Turner, with live commentary from Waters and Peaches Christ.
Kristen Stewart is returning to the big screen, but this time as a director. Her directorial debut, The Chronology of Water, is a force of nature and a piercing adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch's 2011 novel of the same name. Stewart's psychological drama follows a young woman (Imogen Poots) who escapes trauma through writing and swimming. It's a challenging watch but a poignant perspective on addiction and motherhood through the eyes of a queer woman.
The film has Jero (Cristian Mariani) coming home from a workout to find his partner Tom (Gastón Frías) is gone and ghosting him on their anniversary. Jero soon experiences the five stages of grief. As a way of explanation, Tom has left a box of 300 letters recounting his side of their relationship. As Jero starts reading Tom's missives, he learns that his ex thinks he is childish and superficial.
The Arzner Cinema in the Square will see queer and queer-friendly films presented in the heart of Bermondsey between Saturday 23 and Monday 25 August. The debut event from The Arzner cinema & cocktail bar, which opened in Bermondsey Square in March, will see four films screened each day from midday onwards. Earlier films will be more focused around family-friendly stories, while later films will be for the adults.
Rafael Ruiz Espejo's sizzling debut feature, The Last First Time, chronicles a rural Mexican teenager's sexual coming-of-age as he flirts with a boy during a trip to Guadalajara.
