Big Gay Picture Show

Taking a look at the world of film through gay eyes - news, reviews, trailers, gay film, queer cinema and more

Taking a look at the world of film through gay eyes - news, reviews, trailers, gay film, queer cinema & more

Gay & Lesbian Entertainment Critics Hand Top Awards To 12 Years a Slave & Blue is the Warmest Color

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After the recent announcement of the nominations, GALECA (Gay & Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association) has announced the winners of its annual Dorian Awards. They have handed Steve McQueen’s tragic slavery-era drama 12 Years a Slave the gong for Film of the Year, while Film Performance of the Year – Actor went to Matthew McConaughey for his work in Dallas Buyers Club as AIDS affected Ron Woodroof, and Cate Blanchett took Film Performance of the Year – Actress for her turn as a troubled socialite in Blue Jasmine.

GALECA also had plenty of love for Palm d’Or winner Blue is the Warmest Color. The French lesbian romance took both Foreign Language Film of the Year and LGBT Film of the Year. There was praise too for the extremely moving Bridegroom, which took Documentary of the Year. The film is a heartfelt and eye-opening expose of how inequalities in the legal system only add to the grief of LGBTs who have lost their life partner.

In the more unusual film categories, Kill Your Darlings, the fact-based biopic involving a young and wild Allen Ginsberg (played by Daniel Radcliffe) and Short Term 12, the provocative drama set at an at-risk center for teens, tied for Unsung Film of the Year. Gravity was chosen as Visually Striking Film. And Pedro Almodovar’s retro romp I’m So Excited! took Campy Flick honours.

On the TV front, GALECA picked Netflix’s women-in-prison dramedy Orange is the New Black in a tie along with HBO’s Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra as TV Drama of the Year. Orange also nabbed LGBT Drama of the Year, and one of its stars, Laverne Cox, was bestowed the group’s We’re Wilde About You Rising Star Award.

As previously announced, the group chose Lily Tomlin as the recipient of its special Timeless star tribute, given to ‘an actor or performer whose exemplary career is marked by character, wisdom and wit.’

Take a look at the complete list of Dorian Award winners (in bold) below:

Film of the Year
American Hustle (Sony)
Blue is the Warmest Color (Sundance Selects)
Dallas Buyers Club (Focus)
Gravity (WB)
Her (WB)
Laurence Anyways (Breaking Glass)
12 Years a Slave (Fox Searchlight)

Film Performance of the Year – Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street (Paramount)
Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave (Fox Searchlight)
James Franco, Spring Breakers (A24)
Jared Leto, Dallas Buyesr Club (Focus)
Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club (Focus)

Film Performance of the Year – Actress
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine (Sony Classics)
Sandra Bullock, Gravity (WB)
Judi Dench, Philomena (Weinstein)
Adele Exarchopoulos, Blue is the Warmest Color (Sundance Selects)
Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave (Fox Searchlight)

LGBT Film of the Year
Blue is the Warmest Color (Sundance Selects)
Dallas Buyers Club (Focus)
Kill Your Darlings (Sony Classics)
Laurence Anyways (Breaking Glass)
Philomena (Weinstein)

Foreign Language Film of the Year
Blue is the Warmest Color (Sundance Selects)
The Great Beauty (Janus)
The Hunt (Magnolia)
I’m So Excited! (Sony Classics)
Laurence Anyways (Breaking Glass)
Out in the Dark (Breaking Glass)

Documentary of the Year
(theatrical release, TV airing or DVD release)
The Act of Killing (Drafthouse)
Blackfish (Magnolia, CNN)
Bridegroom (Own, Virgil Films)
I Am Divine (Automat, Wolfe)
20 Feet from Stardom (Radius-TWC)

Campy Flick of the Year
August: Osage County (Weinstein)
The Canyons (Sundance Selects)
Carrie (Screen Gems)
The Great Gatsby (WB)
I’m So Excited! (Sony Classics)

Unsung Film of the Year
Frances Ha (Sundance Selects)
In A World . . . (Roadside Attractions)
Kill Your Darlings (Sony Classics) (tie)
Short Term 12 (Cinedigm) (tie)
The Spectacular Now (A24)

Visually Striking Film of the Year
(honoring a production of stunning beauty, from art direction to cinematography)
Frozen (Disney)
Gravity (WB)
Inside Llewyn Davis (CBS Films)
Laurence Anyways (Breaking Glass)
The Great Gatsby (WB)

TV Drama of the Year
American Horror Story: Coven (FX)
Behind the Candelabra (HBO) (tie)
Breaking Bad (AMC)
Mad Men (AMC)
Orange is the New Black (Netflix) (tie)

TV Comedy of the Year
The Big Bang Theory (CBS)
Getting On (HBO)
Girls (HBO)
Ja’mie: Private School Girl (HBO)
Modern Family (ABC)
Veep (HBO)

TV Performance of the Year – Actor
Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad (AMC)
Michael Douglas, Behind the Candelabra (HBO)
Jon Hamm, Mad Men (AMC)
Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory (CBS)
Kevin Spacey, House of Cards (Netflix)

TV Performance of the Year – Actress
Vera Farmiga, Bates Motel (A&E)
Jessica Lange, American Horror Story: Coven (FX)
Tatiana Maslany, Orphan Black (BBC America)
Taylor Schilling, Orange is the New Black (Netflix)
Kerry Washington, Scandal (ABC)
Robin Wright, House of Cards (Netflix)

TV Musical Performance of the Year
Shirley Bassey, “Goldfinger,” 82nd Academy Awards (CBS)
Neil Patrick Harris, “Bigger,” 67th Annual Tony Awards (CBS)
Jane Krakowski, “Theme from Rural Juror,” 30 Rock (NBC)
Jessica Lange and cast, “The Name Game,” American Horror Story: Asylum (FX)
Lea Michele, “To Make You Feel My Love,” Glee (Fox)

LGBT TV Show of the Year
Behind the Candelabra (HBO)
Bridegroom (Own)
Modern Family (ABC)
Orange is the New Black (Netflix)
RuPaul’s Drag Race (Logo)

Campy TV Show of the Year
American Horror Story: Coven (FX)
Behind the Candelabra (HBO)
House of Versace (Lifetime)
Sharknado (Syfy)
Smash (NBC)

Unsung TV Show of the Year
Broadchurch (BBC America)
The Carrie Diaries (CW)
Cougar Town (TBS)
Getting On (HBO)
Mom (CBS)
Orphan Black (BBC America)

The We’re Wilde About You (Rising Star Award)
Adele Exarchopoulos
Dane DeHaan
Laverne Cox
Lupita Nyong’o
Tatiana Maslany

Wilde Wit of the Year
(honoring a performer, writer or commentator whose observations both challenge and amuse)
Rachel Maddow
Bill Maher
Kate McKinnon
Dan Savage
Amy Schumer

Wilde Artist of the Year
(honoring a truly groundbreaking force in the fields of film, theater and/or television)
Alfonso Cuaron
Xavier Dolan
James Franco
Spike Jonze
Steve McQueen

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Test and Born This Way Take Major Outfest Gay Film Festival Awards

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test-posterOutfest, the world’s premier LGBT film festival, has drawn its 2013 edition to a close, handing out its awards to a slew of well-received titles. Top of the bunch were Test, which won the Grand jury award for U.S. dramatic feature, while Born This Way took home the Grand jury award for documentary feature, and It’s All So Quiet won the Grand jury award for international dramatic feature.

Test, directed by Chris Mason Johnson, is described as ‘a poignant, powerful story of friendship and hope in a time of crisis, set in the San Francisco modern dance scene of 1985 in the early years of the AIDS epidemic: when headlines threatened a gay quarantine and when nobody knew for certain how the disease spread.’ Born This Way concentrates on the difficult of gay life in Cameroon, while the Dutch movie It’s All So Quiet focusses on a middle aged farmer, living with his old and bedridden father, as he tries to find truth in life.

Also doing well was Bridegroom, which took home the Audience award for documentary feature. Bridegroom the the documentary that came about after Shane Bitney Crone released a 10-minute Youtube video detailing how he was shut after his boyfriend’s death by his homophobic family. It became a cause celebre and was watched by millions. Linda Bloodworth-Thomason has since turned the sad tale into a feature-length documentary.

We’re also looking forward to seeing Geography Club, which won Audience award for first U.S. dramatic feature, which looks like it should be a lot of fun.

Take a look at the full list of winners below:

Special programming award for freedom
“Deepsouth,” directed by Lisa Biagiotti

Special programming award for artistic achievement
“Animals,” directed by Marçal Forés

Special programming award for emerging talent
Diego Ruiz, writer-director-actor

Audience award for documentary short
“Facing fear,” directed by Jason Cohen

Audience award for dramatic short
“Wini + George,” directed by Benjamin Monie

Audience award for documentary feature
“Bridegroom,” directed by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason

Audience award for dramatic feature
“Reaching For the Moon,” directed by Bruno Barreto

Audience award for first U.S. dramatic feature
“Geography Club,” directed by Gary Entin

Grand jury award for experimental short
“She Gone Rogue,” directed by Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst

Grand jury award for documentary short
“Performing Girl,” directed by Crescent Diamond

Grand jury award for dramatic short
“Going South,” directed Leesong Hee-il

Grand jury award for documentary feature
“Born This Way,” directed by Shaun Kadlec and Deb Tullman

Grand jury award for international dramatic feature
“It’s All So Quiet,” directed by Nanouk Leopold

Grand jury award for actress in a feature
Guinevere Turner, “Who’s Afraid of Vagina Wolf?”

Grand jury award for actor in a feature
Bill Heck and Marcus DeAnda, “Pit Stop”

Grand jury award for screenwriting
Chris Mason Johnson, “Test”

Grand jury award for U.S. dramatic feature
“Test,” directed by Chris Mason Johnson

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LGBT Bridegroom Documentary Wins Tribeca Audience Award & Presidential Praise

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bridegroom-posterLast year the short video ‘It Could Happen To You‘ went massively viral. It told the story of Shane Bitney Crone and his boyfriend Tom, and how when Tom tragically died, Shane found himself completely frozen out by his boyfriend’s homophobic family, with no recourse as his rights were not recognised.

That quickly led to the idea of a feature-length documentary, which became Kickstarter’s highest ever funded project (at the time). The completed project has now premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it even got support from Bill Clinton, who introduced the film. He said, “This is really on one level a wonderful, sad, heartbreaking, yet exhilarating and life-affirming story, and on another level, it’s a story about our nation’s struggle to make one more step in forming a more perfect union, for which marriage is both the symbol and the substance. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.”

There was more good news for the movie, as it picked up the Tribeca Heineken Audience Award, which comes with an award of $25,000.

Director Linda Bloodworth Thomason commented, “We are shocked. We were so grateful to just be selected for the Festival; we never imagined we would win the audience award, Hopefully the power of this story will propel the film into theaters across America and beyond.”

You can watch the trailer for the documentary below, and hopeful we’ll all be able to see it soon. (Source: The Advocate)

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Bridegrooms Trailer – Take a look at the moving LGBT documentary

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Early last year the heartbreaking documentary short, It Could Happen To You, went viral and was watched by millions. It told the story of Shane Bitney Crone and his boyfriend Tom. When tom tragically died, Shane found himself completely frozen out by his boyfriend’s homophobic family, with no recourse as his rights were not recognised.

A couple of months later plans were announced to turn the short into a feature length documentary. At the time it became to highest funded Kickstarter project in history, with over $384,000 pledged to ensure the film became a reality.

Now the trailer for the final documentary, Bridegroom, has been released, which you can watch above. It certainly looks like it’s going to be a moving, emotive film that’ll be well worth watching. Bridegroom will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Shane Bitney Crone commented to Towleroad, “Tom and I were not perfect, but we were perfect for each other. Our love was undeniable, and when I lost him, I lost a large part of myself. No matter how hard Tom’s family tries; they can never erase the love that Tom and I had for each other, and the life that we started together. If Tom and I were legally married, I would never have been so easily disregarded, and knowing that Tom would have wanted his family to embrace me, makes me more determined to fight for this cause. I will never be able to hold Tom again, or tell him that I love him, but this movie may convince many opponents to reconsider their stance on marriage equality, not for me or for Tom, but for love.” [Read more…]

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