Just a couple of years ago Russell Tovey spoke in an interview about how he’d never played a gay character, and that it would need to be a special role for him to do so, as he was proud to be an out gay man who hadn’t been pigeonholed in LGBT roles. Since then he’s played gay more than once, such as in TV’s Looking and in a cameo in Pride.
He also played an LGBT character on stage in The Pass, and has reprised the role for a movie version, alongside Hollyoaks heart-throb Nico Mirallegro and theatre and TV actress Lisa McGrillis, who also starred in the play.
It’s now been announced that The Pass will screen as opening night gala movie of the 30th edition of BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival, on Wednesday 16th March, 2016, at London’s Odeon Leicester Square. The movie comes from first-time feature filmmaker Ben A. Williams, with John Donnelly writing the script, based on his own play.
The Pass is the story of three very different nights over 10 years in the life of a Premier League Footballer. Jason (Russell Tovey) is at the beginning of his career, and on the night before his first big international match he and long-time friend and team-mate Ade (Arinze Kene) share a hotel room, trying to beat the inevitable pre-match tensions with locker-room banter and teenage high-jinks. Out of nowhere Jason kisses Ade. The emotional repercussions of this pass, and the decisions that follow on and off the pitch, have a major impact on every aspect of the public and private lives of both men across the next decade.
The play was highly praised when it was staged in London, so fingers crossed the movie will be good too.
Producer Duncan Kenworthy comments, “As a season ticket holder of a major Premier League Club, I know just how much interest there is in the question of why no currently-playing Premier League player has come out – or has felt able to come out – as gay. The Pass is by no means an issue film, but John Donnelly’s wonderful screenplay puts very handsome flesh on the bones of this modern anomaly, imagining the pain, passion and complexity of the lives of elite footballers always inches away from fame or failure, and wondering whether honesty is worth the price.”
For quite a long time two different biopics about Tom Of Finland have been duelling to get to the screen, but budget issues and other problems mean that both have been in development for years but haven’t actually completed shooting yet. However, now the ‘official’ one, which has the blessing of the erotic artist’s estate, is moving closer to the screen, as 
There’s no Kristen Stewart in The Huntsman: WInter’s War, as this is what happened before the events of Snow White. And as this new trailer shows, that involves warring sisters, played by Charlize Theron and Emily Blunt.
One day it would be nice to have a movie that was utopian rather than dystopian, where the future is actually a good place and science has helped us all out. But I suppose there’s more drama in suggesting things have gone wrong. In Equals at least romance survives, even if it’s not meant to.
War and comedy may not seem like easy bedfellows, but Tina Fey is giving it a go with Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. The film, previously known as Taliban Shuffle, is based on a true story of a reporter getting out of their depth in Afghanistan.
Last September we posted a very violent trailer for a movie called Hardcore, which was creating a bit of a buzz at SXSW due to the fact the entire thing is film like a first person shooter. Since then the film has had a slight title change – to Hardcore Henry – but other than that looks as mental as it did before.
Sergio Tovar Velarde’s Four Moons got a lot of interest on the LGBT film festival circuit when it first did the rounds in 2014, thanks to its idea of bringing together four gay-themed films, each of which deals with a different stage of life. It’s taken a while, but now it’s on its way to DVD and VoD in the UK.
While there aren’t as many coming out movies as there used to be, it’s certainly not a genre that has gone away, and if they’re done well, they can still be entertaining and worthwhile. Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party is a new addition to the canon, which from the trailer suggests it’s less about the teen coming to accept he’s gay, and more about the reactions and thoughts of those around him.
Fans of arty rudeness may already know the name Peter Rome, not least from the BFI release a couple of years ago of