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

Pulse (BFI Flare Review) – A young, gay, disabled man is put in the body of a woman

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Teenager Olly (Daniel Monks) is disabled and has had various health issues to deal with throughout his life. His doctors tell him that it’s likely he’ll have to start using a wheelchair soon. He decides to take advantage of a brand new treatment that’s just arrived in Australia – a full body transplant. However, rather than staying a man, he elects to be put inside the body of a good-looking young woman.

Unsurprisingly his friends are surprised, as they didn’t even know he was attracted to men, let alone that he might be interested being in a woman’s body. Although the new body gives Olly a new lease on life, it also causes problems as he takes his freedom to the extreme and others react badly when they discover who he truly is. [Read more…]

My Own Private Hell (Inferninho) (BFI Flare Review) – A unique queer netherworld comes under threat

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A trans woman, Deusimar (Yuri Yamamoto), runs a bar in what looks like a storage room, where her clients are a bunch of misfits including a man painted completely silver, a bearded Wonder Woman and a hoary old Spider-man, and her staff includes a man dressed as a rabbit. A stranger, Jarbas (Demick Lopes), comes into the bar, and soon starts an affair with Deusimar. She falls deeply for the sailor but in his wake the influences of the outside world come into this safe but unusual world, which increasingly threatens its existence. [Read more…]

F.A.M.I.L.Y. (F.A.M.I.L.L.E) (BFI Flare Review) – Looking at gay parenting by artificial insemination

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Director Jessica Champeaux looks into the world of lesbian parenting via artificial insemination in Belgium. This is mainly done via interviews with medical professionals, women who’ve decided to have children that way, and adults whose gay parents had them by artificial insemination.

It’s the last of those that’s the most interesting. Both the doctors and the parents largely let us know exactly what we’d expect to hear (at times parroting a party line that perhaps needs to be challenged a little more). However, the adult children are the voice that offers something new, expressing their confusion at the homophobia they experienced growing up because of their parents. They also talk about how they experience an oppression that is unique to them and can be quite acute – it’s not merely homophobia once removed as many would like to believe. [Read more…]

Uncle David 2 (BFI Flare Review) – David Hoyle’s back on the Isle Of Sheppey with a new ‘nephew’

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Back in 2010 we got the movie Uncle David, about a middle-aged man – the David (David Hoyle) of the title – going to the Isle Of Sheppey with his younger lover/protégé. Now we have the sequel, which has a similar set-up with David back in his Sheppey caravan with a different young person – the genderqueer Michelle. Again David is pontificating about what he sees as the social ills of the world, although as those who’ve seen the first film will know, he’s got his own secrets and may be more dangerous than he first appears.

Into the mix come the almost feral Max and his sister, who are struggling for survival. The sister takes an interest in David and Michelle, but Max is wary of them. That doesn’t stop him taking an interest in Michelle though. [Read more…]

Cherry Grove Stories (BFI Flare Review) – The gay history of the Fire Island community unravelled

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Fire Island, located just off Long Island, New York, is a legendary part of gay history. It’s a place bound up in ideas of hedonism, sexual freedom/liberation and, some would say, debauchery, but perhaps more importantly its seen as a place where LGBT people have long been able to themselves in ways it was (particularly in the past) difficult to be anywhere else. It’s reached the status that for people who’ve never been there it’s almost mythic. Cherry Grove Stories is a documentary that helps to bring this spit of land back to earth, focussing on the Cherry Grove community and showing what it really was and is. [Read more…]

The Carmilla Movie (BFI Flare Review) – The popular lesbian vampire web series hits the big screen

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I have to admit Carmilla passed me by. There have been three seasons of the web series about a 330-year-old lesbian vampire woman who falls for a mortal and ends up fighting evil, but it wasn’t a show I’d ever heard of. However, the screening of The Carmilla Movie at BFI Flare showed me quite how remiss I’ve been, as the National Film Theatre was packed with ‘Cream Puffs’ (which is what fans of the show call themselves) who were rabidly excited for the movie, and went into true fangirling mode when Carmilla herself – aka actress Natasha Negovanlis – stepped onto the stage.

By the end of the film I was beginning to understand how Carmilla has managed to transcend its web series roots, build a loyal fanbase around the world and get turned into a movie. [Read more…]

Rift (Rökkur) (BFI Flare Review) – Gay horror gets strange in Iceland

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For a nation with a population of just under 350,000 people, Iceland punches above its weight in the world of film. However, it’s always tended to be – as Rift director Erlingur Thoroddsen said in the Q&A following the BFI Flare Film Festival screening of his movie – straight, white Icelandic dudes making the films. Thankfully that looks likes it’s starting to change to include queer voices, with the recent coming-of-age movie, Heartstone, and now the horror-thriller, Rift.

Gunni has recently split it off with his long-term boyfriend, Einar, and has started seeing someone new. He receives a strange phone call in the middle of the night from a seemingly unstable Einar, who says he’s at his parents’ holiday property called Rökkur (Twilight). Afraid Einar is going to do something drastic, Gunni heads off to the remote house to make sure his former lover is okay. [Read more…]

New Queer Visions: Men From The Boys (VoD Review) – The gay film festival strand brings us a short film collection

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For several years New Queer Visions has been presenting programmes of LGBT short films at various film festivals. Now some of the shorts that have been screened by NVQ have been brought together into a package available for us all to watch via Filmdoo (worldwide) and Amazon (in both the UK and US).

While a previous New Queer Visions collection we covered concentrated on female-led films, this one is all about the boys. They range from how sexuality touches race and ethnicity to dating someone deep in the closet. Take a look at what we thought of the films below. [Read more…]

Prom King, 2010 (Iris Prize Best Feature Winner Review) – Will a young man find Hollywood love or just feel like a gay imposter?

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Charlie (Christopher Schaap) is a young gay man in college. He has grown up watching classic Hollywood movies, which have filled his head with the idea that love should feel like it’s in slow motion and in Technicolor hyper-reality. However, as he negotiates romance, friendship and the realities of being gay in the 21st Century, he soon discovers things aren’t going to be as simple as they are in an old black and white romances.

Over the course of his college career Charlie looks for love, getting very close to it with some guys, but spectacularly failing with others. As he discovers, hot waiters who take your anal virginity, or friends you might have feelings for don’t offer ‘happily ever after’ just because it would be neat if they did. It may not just be his need for a fully symphonic Hollywood love story that’s the problem though, as it can be tough just to find your place in a gay world that you don’t quite feel like you belong to. [Read more…]

Iris Prize Festival LGBT International Short Films 2017 – Part 3 (Short Film Reviews)

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The Iris Prize Festival has now drawn to a close, but its still worth seeking out some of the excellent short film that competed for the world’s largest short film prize, the Iris Prize. We’ve already posted our thoughts on the first 23 short films that screened across the festivals five days, and below you can find reviews of the final 12 (presented in screening order – opinions are mine and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts of the overall jury).

Click here for Iris Prize Festival LGBT International Short Films 2017 – Part 1
Click here for Iris Prize Festival LGBT International Short Films 2017 – Part 2 [Read more…]