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
After the success of Peccadillo’s Boys On Film series – which has so far given us 10 selections of great short films focussed on gay men – comes the lesbian-themed Girls On Film: The First Date. The disc features nine shorts, and as with the Boys On Film releases it’s a great selection that covers a broad range of topics and ideas, taking in everything from comedy to documentary.
You can take a look at what I thought of each of the shorts below: [Read more…]
There are lots of LGBT film festivals all around the world, but the fact is that most of the time the ‘T’ in that acronym gets short shrift. While a few films of transgender interest will be shown, it often feels the festival is just paying lip service to trans* stories.
As a result – and with transgender people becoming more visible than ever before such as Conchita Wurst is winning the Eurovision Song Contest and Laverne Cox (Orange is the new Black) on the cover of Time Magazine – festivals devoted purely to trans* topics are starting to spring up. That includes the Transgender Filmfestival London, which is being put together for those who’s like to know more about Drag Queens, Drag Kings and Transsexuals.
The fest has now announced its line-up, which you can find out more about below. One of the great things about it is that until recently any trans* festival or screening series was challenged by a lack of new content, but now events can be put on that don’t have to rely on older films and movies that only tangentially touch on trans* topics. Filmmakers are increasingly tackling different gender identities on screens and the issues surrounding that, are the results are great to see.
The Transgender Filmfestival London is set to take place at London’s Cinema Museum on Saturday October 11th from 6.00 p.m. till midnight, offering a selection of short films that give an insight into trans-life
The Cinema Museum contributed a lot to the visibility of modern trans-movie-classics with monthly transculture-screenings and is therefore a great place for the new Transgender-Filmfestival in the heart of London.
You can find out more about the festival on its Facebook page.
Take a look below for the line-up of films that are due to be screened: [Read more…]
Back in February, the LGBT short film festival, The Iris Prize, announced the launch of a new strand celebrating the Best Of British, to go alongside the international main prize. Iris has long been notable for the fact it doesn’t just offer the overall Best Short Film winner a plaque, but gives them funding and support to make a new film.
Now it’s been announced that the Best Of British award will also offer amazing support for the winner, with the legendary Pinewood Studios Group sponsoring a post-production package to help with the making of their next film, comprising of sound mixing, sound track lay and dub plus layback.
As murky sound is one of the biggest problems for low budget filmmakers, it’s a great prize to get.
Films selected to compete include tales of English football fans in the 90’s, passion and desire between two women in a sleepy English coastal village and a new member of staff in a Scottish call centre for the deaf who gets embroiled in a lovers tiff.
A five strong jury will select the winner from the 10 shorts chosen to compete. This year’s festival takes place in Cardiff, Wales from Wednesday 8th to Sunday 12th October 2014.
Here are the competing Best Of British shorts:
Brace – dir: Sophy Holland, Alicya Eyo
Butterfly – dir: Stuart McLaughlin
Holly Thursday (The Last Supper) – dir: Antony Hickling
Middle Man – dir: Charlie Francis
Playing The Game – dir: Jeremy Timings
Remission – dir: Christopher Brown
Siren – dir: Louise Marie Cooke
Vis a Vis – dir: Dan Connolly
Wannabe – dir: Marco Calabrese
We are Fine – dir: Simon Savory
Although there’s a lot of talk about the homophobia LGBT people are exposed to from outside the community – and to a lesser extent individual, internalised homophobia – discrimination within LGBT groups is often ignored. Although there’s eye-rolling about things such as gay men’s seeming obsession with youth and large penises, the effects of such things are largely swept under the carpet.
Now a documentary has emerged, The Same Difference, which sets out to tackle discrimination and the internal policing within the lesbian community, as well as the way it can prevent some women being exactly who they want to be. It’s a topic that’s bound to cause some controversy, but definitely a worthwhile conversation to have – and gay men could do with their own documentary looking at a similar idea too.
You can take a look at a five minute teaser of the doc below.
Talking to Huffpo, filmmaker Nneka Onuorah says of the documentary, “One of the misconceptions I am trying to dispel through this documentary is the belief that there are rules to being who you are. In the lesbian community, for example, if you’re a butch lesbian you can’t do anything girly. You can’t be too beautiful, your pants can’t be too tight, if you get your hair straight that’s wrong and getting pregnant isn’t right. It’s almost like being a part of a gang. People don’t want to beat you or make you feel bad if you do something that’s out of the “norm” but we are gay we are already out of the norm. I also want people to see the true title of what “The Same Difference” means. We always judge others for things that they do, but we don’t see how the things we judge people for parallel with things we do that might not be right. It’s the Same Difference. Just like how there are some people who are a part of the heterosexual community that protest against us and think what we are doing isn’t right we are taking those same attitudes and putting them onto each other.”
She adds that The Same Difference is, “Important because it is something that is needed in the community. There are people who are suppressing who they really are to fit in, in fear of being jumped, outcaste and ostracized. It also isn’t a topic that is ever brought to light so it is an ongoing negative thing. This documentary is going to start a conversation and hopefully have people be more open-minded to being accepting of people who have different ways of doing things. Not just in the lesbian community but people in general. Who would have thought that there would be hatred amongst a community from the inside that already gets it from the outside.” [Read more…]
LA’s main gay and lesbian film festival, Outfest, has come to an end for the year, but before it went out, it had awards for the best film, documentaries and shorts that screened at the during the event. The big winner was Drunktown’s Finest, which won the First US Dramatic Feature Audience Award and the US Dramatic Feature Film Grand Jury prize.
Other winners include Best Actor in a US Dramatic Feature for Mark Strano in Tiger Orange, with the Actress prize handed to Gaby Hoffmann for Lyle. The Ben Whishaw starring Lilting got an International Dramatic Feature Special Recognition, while the already acclaimed The Way He Looks took the overall Dramatic Feature Audience Award.
In case you were wondering, Drunktown’s Finest follows three Native Americans – a college-bound student, a father-to-be, and a promiscuous transsexual – as they struggle to escape their Indian reservation.
Take a look below for the full list of awards. [Read more…]
It’s been a case of co-ordination today, as the moment the BFI announced that The Imitation Game is set to open the 58th BFI London Film Festival, Studiocanal released the UK trailer and in the US The Weinstein Company unveiled theirs.
The movie will open the LFF with a gala screening on Wednesday 8th October at the Odeon Leicester Square, with a live cinecast from the red carpet and simultaneous screenings taking place at cinemas across the UK.
You can take a look at the trailers below.
Here’s the synopsis: ‘THE IMITATION GAME is a nail-biting race against time following Alan Turing (pioneer of modern-day computing and credited with cracking the German Enigma code) and his brilliant team at Britain’s top-secret code-breaking centre, Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II. Turing, whose contributions and genius significantly shortened the war, saving thousands of lives, was the eventual victim of an unenlightened British establishment, but his work and legacy live on.
‘THE IMITATION GAME stars Benedict Cumberbatch (Star Trek Into Darkness, TV’s Sherlock) as Alan Turing and Keira Knightley (Atonement) as close friend and fellow code-breaker Joan Clarke, alongside a top notch cast including Matthew Goode (A Single Man), Mark Strong (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), Rory Kinnear (Skyfall), Charles Dance (Gosford Park, TV’s Game of Thrones), Allen Leech (In Fear, TV’s Downton Abbey) and Matthew Beard (An Education).’
Director Morten Tyldum comments on the LFF announcement, “I am thrilled to be returning to London to share The Imitation Game with the audience of the BFI London Film Festival. The experience of directing this film has been so tremendously rewarding, and I am humbled to share Alan’s Turing’s incredible story on Opening Night.”
Of course Turing was gay, and to be honest the trailers are unlikely to assuage those worried the film will whitewash his sexuality. Although the US trailer does make oblique reference to it, you could still easily believe Keira Knightley is going to be the film’s ‘love interest’. Many will be keeping a close eye on The Imitation Game, as the importance of Turing’s story isn’t just in cracking German codes during World War II and the fact his work helped lead to modern computers, but that after the war he was prosecuted for his sexuality, shunned and made to chemically castrate himself, which eventually led to his suicide.
To sideline that is to do a disservice to a man who may have made many more breakthroughs if he didn’t live in a society that was happy to use him to help save the country, but then destroyed him after because of their narrow view of human love.
Hopefully the trailers are the ones sidelining the issue and not the movie. We’ll have to wait and see. (Many other mainstream films with gay content ignore that aspect in trailers that cater to the masses, with the logic that you won’t turn off gay-friendly people by not including it, but you could turn off others if you do).
The movie opens across the UK on November 15th. [Read more…]
There have been a vast array of films in the last few years that have bid to be the new Twilight or Harry Potter. While Vampire Academy may not have ever been likely to have hit those heights, there were hopes it could carve out its own niche. Instead it pretty much sank without trace, partly because it’s so busy trying to be other popular franchises – or perhaps parodying them – that it never becomes anything on its own.
The film’s mythology follows three races of being – the Moroi, who are a mortal, largely benevolent magical race but who have to live on blood; the Strigoi, who are the evil, immortal vampires of myths; and the half-bloodsucker Dhampir, a warrior race who protect the Moroi. [Read more…]
Often the best documentaries are about subjects you’re kind of aware of in the background of your life, but you’ve never really thought that much about them. Indeed that’s almost the definition of the subjects of 20 Feet From Stardom – the back-up singers who’ve featured on all sorts of well-known songs, but whose name rarely gets on the record cover.
For example, the documentary features the guy who provided the opening riff of The Lion King. And you can call me an idiot, but it was the first time I’d actually thought that someone actually had to record what has become one of the most famous opening moments in cinema, and we’ve never seen his face [Read more…]
Yves Saint Laurent tells the story of one of fashion’s greatest legends. Directed by Jalil Lespert (Tell No One) and starring Pierre Niney (La Comédie Francaise) in the title role, this visually sumptuous film begins in Paris, 1957. The film charts YSL’s career from his early years at Dior in the late 1950s through to his iconic Ballet Russes collection of 1976. The world of late 1950s is perfectly captured with elegant Dior designs, stylish models and a jazz score that matches the chic Parisian apartments the fashionistas inhabit. [Read more…]
We’re a bit behind with Futurama in the UK. While Season 7 started in 2012 in the US, we’ve only just had it on TV in the UK, quickly followed by this home entertainment release. To make things a little more confusing, this release has 13 episodes, although officially the US Season 7 has 26 instalments. However it was split in two in both countries and so we’ve still got more episodes to come in Britain. That may sound annoying, but as the show has now been cancelled (again), it is good to know us Brits have a few new episodes before the end of Futurama finally comes. [Read more…]
