The exceptional Miami Film Festival has been around since 1984, and as part of its continuing growth, ten years ago they introduced The Gems Film Festival.  It’s a second permanent festival to its annual activities, a four-day event to present the “jewels” of the fall season….. and as we studied this year’s program, we actually uncovered quite a selection of real gems.  Here they are QUEERGURU’S TOP LIST OF MUST SEE FILMS 

Any new movie from the multi-award-winning queer filmmaker Luca Guadagnono is a major event in our eyes. The genius behind some gems, such as Queer, Call Me By Your Name, I Am Love etc, never fails to totally delight us,  and too often leaves us spellbound.  We know so little of the man, but the fact is that actors and creatives go back to work with him time after time.  His latest film, the thriller  AFTER THE HUNT, has actors Chloe Sevigny and Michael Stuhlbarg making their 3rd appearance in a Guadagnino film. 

However, this is  Academy Award Winner Julia Roberts‘ first time, and she stars as Alma, a college professor caught between a sexual abuse accusation involving one of her students and a colleague. Michael Stuhlbarg is  Frederik Olsson, Alma’s psychiatrist husband:   Andrew Garfield as Henrik “Hank” Gibson, Alma’s colleague and close friend who is accused of assault:  Chloë Sevigny as Dr. Kim Sayers, the university’s student liaison and Alma’s friend : and Ayo Edebiri as Margaret “Maggie” Resnick, a young philosophy student and Alma’s protégée

Director Richard Linklater’s latest film, Blue Moon, examines the tragic 1940s professional break-up between Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) and his composing partner Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott). The duo, America’s Gilbert and Sullivan, were responsible for twenty years of musical classics such as My Funny Valentine, The Lady is a Tramp and Blue Moon. Seemingly unstoppable, behind the scenes their partnership gradually disintegrated due to Hart’s alcoholism, which led to unreliable and erratic behaviour and depression. This steered Rodgers to working with Oscar Hammerstein instead and the legendary Rodgers and Hammerstein alliance hit the ground running with the 1943 launch of the musical Oklahoma!

Castration Movie Part 1: this is one of those very strange films that which you will either love  or hate …. there is no middle option. It has been listed as #8 on Letterboxd’s Top 20 Highest Rated Films of the Year list.  Writer/director/star Louise Weard plays Michaela “Traps” Sinclair  a trans sex worker trying to get by in Vancouver while also mentoring her recently-out friend Adeline (Aoife Josie Clements) and making an attempt at pursuing actual motherhood. Meanwhile, a lowly production assistant named Turner (Noah Baker) finds himself dangerously spiraling into inceldom as his current relationship implodes. This film is 4.5 hours long and is part of an anthology that is expected to have a run time of 16 hours

Dead Mens Wire automatically makes this list as its the latest film from multi-award winning queer filmmaker Gus Van Sant. Its an American historical crime film  written by Austin Kolodney, based on the true story of kidnapping by Tony Kiritsis in the 1970s. The film draws in part from the 2018 documentary Dead Man’s Line, directed by Alan Berry and Mark Enochs, which explored the same events. It stars Bill Skarsgård, Dacre Montgomery, Colman Domingo, Myha’la, Cary Elwes, John Robinson, and Al Pacino.

Most filmmakers that we are fortunate to meet have a passion for their art, but Annapurna Sriram also possesses an infectious charm and sense of humor that makes us never quite sure what is fact, or a product of her vivid (and sometimes dirty?) imagination. We met her at  Provincetown Film Festival when she screened FUCKTOYS for which she has just won that Special Jury Award for Multi-Hyphenate – Narrative Feature at SXSW. Sriram stars in the film as a fun-loving dominatrix who learns from a tarot reader (the fabulous Big Freedia) that she’s been cursed, and the only way to lift the curse is to come up with $1,000 and sacrifice a baby lamb.

Paul Mescal who in our eyes simply cannot put a foot wrong in his choice of movies now stars in HAMNETT . This is the untold love story that inspired Shakespeare’s greatest masterpiece and his co star is the Irish Academy Award Nominee Jessie Buckley and its directed by Academy Award winner Chloé Zhao, and produced by Steven Spielberg and Sam Mendes.

We would be in serious danger of losing our ‘gay card’ if we didnt include the late and very great Judy Garland and the revival of one of her greatest musicals MEET ME IN ST LOUIS  which became the second-highest-grossing film of 1944.  Real Christmas magic

This is very rare even for us to nominate TWO movies from one director in a Festival.  So alongside Blue Moon, filmmaker Richard Linklater has a comedy-drama Nouvelle Vague follows the shooting of Breathless, one of the first feature films in 1959 of the Nouvelle Vague era of French cinema.  It stars  Guillaume Marbeck as Jean-Luc Godard, Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg, and Aubry Dullin as Jean-Paul Belmondo,

After writing for Cahiers du cinéma, young Godard decides making films is the best film criticism. He gets Beauregard to fund a low-budget feature, creating a treatment with Truffaut about a gangster couple.

Twinless The film follows Roman (a stunning performence by Dylan O’Brien)  as he grapples with the tragic loss of his twin brother, Rocky. So he joins a support group for twins who have lost their siblings, where they share their stories and provide comfort to one another. It’s here he meets Dennis, played by James Sweeney. The two quickly form a strong bond, becoming close friends and each other’s support system.

What begins as a buddy-comedy from writer/director/actor James Sweeney turns into something you couldn’t possibly predict.

for full reviews on over 2000 queer films check out www.queerguru.com and whilst you are there be sure to subscribe to get all the latest raves and rants on queer cinema …best of all its FREE