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

Dream On Teaser Trailer

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It’s always good to see a new gay movie coming out of Britain, and Dream On is just that, a fresh, independent UK film that’s planning a release this summer. The teaser trailer has now been released, which you can take a look at above.

Here’s the official synopsis: ‘Dream On is a feature film written and directed by Lloyd Eyre-Morgan based on the sell-out play of the same title. Polar opposite teenagers Paul and George meet and fall in love on a campsite Iin Wales during the summer of ’88. They make a pact to return the following summer and run away together, but when only Paul shows up, he vows to find his young lover and sets off with the campsite owner’s daughter in tow and his overbearing mother not far behind… If they think running away is going to be easy, they’d better dream on.’

You can see the poster below and get more info at the film’s official website.

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Gay Themed Movie Eases Tension In The Balkans

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While huge strides have been made for both gay rights and acceptance of homosexuality in a lot of European countries, things still remain difficult in many of the former Communist countries. However a film called The Parade is helping to break down barriers in the Balkans.

The AP reports on the fact the movie, from a Serbia director, is now the biggest box office hit in the former Yugoslavia in years, even as it challenges both the region’s ethnic divide and its deeply rooted homophobia.

While tensions still remain between Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia, all three countries seems keen on The Parade, with director Srdjan Dragojevic commenting, “The whole region is united for the first time in liking this film.”

The Parade, which won a trio of gongs at the Berlin Film Festival, is about a gay couple in the Serbian capital of Belgrade who try to organise a gay pride event in the face of threats and violence from far-right groups. To help them they recruit a Serbian war veteran to protect the parade; who enlists a ragtag group of former fighters, including a Croatian, a Bosnian Muslim and a Kosovo Albanian.

While The Parade is a humourous film promoting both unity and diversity, some gay rights activists have had issues over whether the film actually will promote gay rights. However the director says about his film, “It is very important for people to recognise the simple message that it is irrelevant what nationality you are, how you pray or who you go to bed with.”

Incredibly in Bosnia, The Parade has been more popular than movie like Avatar, while the film sold 150,000, which is incredibly impressive in a country with only four million people.

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26th BFI London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival Opens Today

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Today’s the day the 26th BFI London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival opens, with gala screenings of Cloudburst, starring Oscar-winners Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker.

The festival runs from now until April 1st, and while some of the screenings are already full, tickets are still available for many of the movies and events, so if you’re in London, head over to the festival’s website to find out more.

Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be bringing you a bit of coverage of some of the movies screening at the LLGFF, so keep an eyes out for that!

Highlights of the festival include two centrepiece screenings of powerful, award-winning dramas. Circumstance is an affecting account of a lesbian coming-of-age in contemporary Tehran, which won the Audience Award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, while Absent is the unpredictable tale of a 16-year-old’s attempt to get close to his teacher, which won the Teddy Award at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival.

Other top films on the programme include The Perfect Family, starring Kathleen Turner as a Catholic woman coming to terms with her daughter’s sexuality, while Gun Hill Road tells the story of an ex-con struggling to accept that his teenage son is transitioning to female, and features a strong performance by young trans actor Harmony Santana (Eating Out: Drama Camp). The festival closes on April 1st with Bavo Defurne’s North Sea Texas, a compelling tale of teenage longing set in a Belgian coastal town.

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Omar Sharif’s Grandson Comes Out Amid Fears For Return To Egypt

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Omar Sharif Jr & Sr

The grandson of actor Omar Sharif has come out, partly as a political act to highlight his fear for the future of Egypt after the Arab spring. With the Muslim Brotherhood’s power increasing in the country, his fears are particularly personal as he’s a half-jewish, gay man – neither of which are very popular with the Brotherhood.

Sharif Jr. came out in an article he wrote for The Advocate entitled ‘We’re Not in Cairo Anymore’, says he’s writing “in fear. Fear for my country, fear for my family, and fear for myself.

“My parents will be shocked to read it, surely preferring I stay in the shadows and keep silent, at least for the time being. But I can’t.”

Sharif Jr., who like his grandfather is also an actor, left Egypt before the revolution and is now afraid to return. “The vision for a freer, more equal Egypt — a vision that many young patriots gave their lives to see realized in Tahrir Square — has been hijacked. The full spectrum of equal and human rights are now wedge issues used by both the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces and the Islamist parties, when they should be regarded as universal truths.”

He adds, “I hesitantly confess: I am Egyptian, I am half Jewish, and I am gay… While to many in Europe and North America mine might seem like trivial admissions, I am afraid this is not so in Egypt. I anticipate that I will be chastised, scorned, and most certainly threatened. From the vaunted class of Egyptian actor and personality, I might just become an Egyptian public enemy.”

He then asks the political powers to speak out in favour of equal rights for Egyptians regardless of gender or sexual orientation, saying “I want to know that we are not sliding downward on a slippery slope from secular(ish) society toward Islamic fundamentalist state […] After all of this, if we pursue a national agenda that does not respect basic human rights, we are no better than the architects of tyranny, contempt, and oppression toppled throughout the Arab Spring.”

Omar Sharif senior became one of the most famous actors of his era starring in movies like Lawrence Of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, and is one of only a handful of African born actors to make it to the top in Hollywood. It isn’t known what he thinks of his grandson coming out.

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First Look At Daniel Radcliffe As Gay Poet Allen Ginsberg

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Dan Radcliffe is busy playing gay at the moment, as Allen Ginsberg in the movie Kill your Darlings. Now the first set pics of him in costume has shown up over at Huffpo. You can see one of them above, then click below to enlarge some more, alongside a pic of the real Ginsberg.

Kill Your Darlings speculates around real-life events involving beat generation legends Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William S Burroughs. They were all brought together by Columbia University student Lucien Carr, who was implicated in (and served time for) the murder of David Kammerer, who was found dead in Hudson River in 1944. Carr claimed the death was an accident after Kammerer made an unwanted sexual advance, although they had known each other for several years (and it has been claimed they were lovers). The events surrounding the death are said to have had a massive impact on the beat circle, and tempered the idealism they had felt beforehand.

The film also stars Elizabeth Olsen, Jennifer Jason Leigh, David Cross, and Kyra Sedgwick and should be in cinemas later this year.

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J. Blakeson Directing Alan Turing Biopic The Imitation Game

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A biopic of Alan Turing is long overdue, but has probably been a long time coming as the film world was scared off by his sexuality and the rather tragic end to his tale. However a few months ago Warner Bros. bought the spect script The Imitiation Game, which is about Turing, and at the time Leo Dicaprio was said to have the inside track on the main role.

Now Variety reports that J. Blakeson has come onboard to direct The Imitation Game, although there’s no word on whether DiCaprio is still involved. Blakeson wrote the screenplay for The Descent Part 2, but really made waves writing and directing The Disappearance Of Alice Creed.

Graham Moore’s script is about British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist Alan Turing. ‘Informed’ by Andrew Hodges’ biography, Alan Turing: The Enigma, the film will look at the shy man who is now seen by many as the father of modern computing. His work led to the creation of some of the first computers, which were used to help the Allies decode German communications during WWII. However due to the sensitive nature of his work, his contribution wasn’t officially recognised for many years.

Indeed, rather than being praised by his country, he was persecuted for being gay, which led to depression, the destruction of his career and him eventually killing himself by eating a cyanide-laced apple. In 2009 PM Gordon Brown made an official apology for the way he was treated, although his convictions for being gay still stand.

Hopefully there’ll be news soon on whether Leo will play Turing, or if the role has gone to someone else.

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Stud Life Trailer – Screening at LLGFF

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Urban movies are quite big at the moment, but gay urban movies dealing with queer people of color are far rarer. However there’s Stud Life, which will be screening at the BFI London Lebsian & Gay Film Festival on the 30th & 31st of March. Stud Life is about ‘JJ, the black lesbian stud who looks and acts like an old-fashioned stone butch dyke and her best friend, a promiscuous, sharp-tongued, gay man, Seb, who also helps assist her work as a photographer.’ The trailer is now online, so take a look at it above.

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Gillian Anderson Opens Up About Teen Lesbian Relationships

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She may have spent years flirting with David Duchovny in The X-Files, but before that actress Gillian Anderson had relationships with other girls when she was in school.

Anderson has been talking about this in an interview with Out Magazine, saying, “I was in a relationship with a girl for a long time when I was in high school.”

Having moved from England to the US when she was 11 she experienced a bit of a culture clash, and says that ended up beings voted ‘Most Bizarre’ and ‘Most Likely to Be Arrested’ in high school, noting that there was a bit of truth to both, “based on how I chose to look, dress, behave, you know—the relationships I was in at the time were freaking people out.”

However dating a girl doesn’t seem to have been a big deal for her at the time, as she says, “If I had thought I was 100% gay, would it have been a different experience for me? Would it have been a bigger deal if shame had been attached to it and all those things that become huge life-altering issues for youngsters in that situation? It’s possible that my attitude around it came, on some level, from knowing that I still liked boys.”

The entire interview is worth a read, so head over to Out to take a look.

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On The Road Trailer

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There’s been a lot of talk about Walter Salles’ adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s classic On The Road, with many suggesting it shouldn’t be made into a film, others being wary about the cast, while many have been avidly looking forward to it. Now the first trailer has arrives, so we can get a hint at the tone of the film and it’s rather sepia colour palette. However, its difficult to tell from this whether the movie will retain the strong homoerotic undertones of the book.

#The film follows Sal Paradise (Sam Riley), an aspiring New York writer who meets Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund), a devastatingly charming ex-con, who’s married to the very liberated and seductive Marylou (Kristen Stewart). Sal and Dean bond instantly. Determined not to get locked in to a constricted life, the two friends cut their ties and take to the road with Marylou. Thirsting for liberty, the three young people head off in search of the world, of other encounters, and of themselves. It’s currently due out on the UK on September 21st.

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Colin Farrell Speaks Out To Try And End Homophobia

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There are quite a few Hollywood stars with gay silbings, including Chris Evans and Colin Farrell. The latter has recently been speaking out in an attempt to end homophobia and bullying in Ireland (and indeed everywhere else).

Colin and his brother Eamon have joined forces with Stand Up! Don’t Stand for Homophobic Bullying, a campaign launched last week by the Irish LGBT youth organisation, BeLonG To. The Hollywood star was particularly keen to put his name to the campaign after seeing attacks on his brother when they were younger.

In a statement he says, ‘Each individual, as a member of his and her community, must Stand Up! In the face of this appalling brutality that plagues our schools. In effect, bullying is no less than the systematic doling out of pain upon the innocent. It is literally laughing in the face of somebody as they fall into increasingly grave danger. It’s not my place to draw parallels, but we have had enough of such hardships. The world has.

‘Whether it be the attacking of gay students, which I witnessed first hand happening to my own brother, or students who are in the minority as a result of race or religious beliefs or any other such characteristic that separates them from ‘the norm,’ it is all wrong and has no place in a just and compassionate country such as I know Ireland to be. We have always been praised as being the friendliest and most welcoming race in the world. My wish is for us to prove it daily, in the school yards and playgrounds across this Great Land of Ours.’

Colin will next be seen playing the lead in a remake of Total Recall.

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