The 18th Annual Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival …..known as MiFo kicks off later this week with an extraordinary and eclectic program of great new LGBT movies.  Because of its very diverse local population, the joy of MiFo is that it always has one of the most comprehensive selection of Latino cinematic treats, and this year is no exception as it’s 10-day festival is featuring more than 80 films from 28 different countries.

Here then are queerguru’s Top Ten Movies that you simply should not miss:

10) Akron : When 17 year old Benny arrives home his mother spots his ear-to-ear grin and demands to know what the cause is. ‘I’ve met someone’ he admits but refuses to add anymore at this early stage, but she insists on knowing at least that the object of his affection is cute. ‘Yes’ he admits ‘very’.  As is this movie written and co-directed by newbie filmmaker and Akron native Brian O’Donnell.  It is a wonderfully refreshing coming-of-age story that simply captures all the passionate excitement of two very fresh-faced wholesome kids in the glow of first love.

9) Spa Night : This is really a very fine coming-of-age story of a young Korean/American man with a foot in two different cultures in which he doesn’t feel he fits, and which in a way mirrors his parents own struggle to find their American identities. On top of that David also has to come to terms with his own sexuality, which looks like it is going to take a great deal longer to resolve.

8) Front Cover :  When a top NY gay American/Chinese Stylist is asked to work with a straight Chinese pop star hoping to make it big in the US, the clash of old and new cultures looks like this arrangement is never going to work at all. And it doesn’t until both men discover that they have a lot more in common than they would have ever guessed. The number of LGBT movies with Asian based story lines that get distributed on a global basis add up to no more than a mere handful, which is a great shame. When they are as good as ‘Front Cover’, and have a ‘message’ that audiences will not just relate too but really enjoy too, they so deserve to be seen . 

7) Suited : this is an extraordinarily uplifting documentary about a couple of NY Tailors who have found their calling making suits for gender non-confirming clients. Their story started a few years ago when Rae Tutera (who had been born Rachel) came across a rather unassuming tailor called Daniel Friedman (who is straight & Jewish) who made him his first ever suit. Rae was so happy that he persuaded Daniel to take him on as an apprentice, and that’s when Bindle and Keep was born.

6) Fatima Queen Of The Night : This enchanting new movie from Cuban actor turned filmmaker Jorge Perugorria is one day in Fatima’s life as she tells her story in a series of flashbacks of how she started out life in the 1980’s as a quiet lonely gay country boy and ended up now as a transvestite hooker working Havana’s Fraternity Park.  Coming out on top after such a rough journey is something that most people admire and aspire too, and this one comes with very good advice too  : ‘You could conquer the world wearing the right lipstick’.  A sheer joyous tale of overcoming adversity.

5) The Companion : back in 1990’s the government in Cuba chose to round up AIDS patients and send them to a military facility turned into a sanitarium where they were very carefully ‘supervised’. If the patient conformed and behaved they were allowed out on a visit home once a week accompanied by an official ‘companion’ to ensure that they would return. This new and rather sobering  movie is a fictionalized narrative based on one such patient and his full time ‘companion’ and how they bonded in these heartbreaking circumstances. One of the movies co-stars is the celebrated Cuban hip-hop artist Yotuel making his acting debut.  Totally unmissable

4) Made In Bangkok  Morgana is a very bubbly trans woman with boundless energy and sheer determination to succeed at achieving her goal of getting realignment surgery to complete her transition. Perpetually in very good spirits, she travels from her home in Mexico to Thailand as she been accepted to enter the Miss International Queen beauty pageant where the prize money is enough to pay the high cost of the surgery.  She loses the competition but never fear there is a very happy end to this enchanting documentary by which time she has won our hearts too.

3) Paris 05:59 (Théo et Hugo dans le même bateau) : just picked up a prestigious Teddy Award at the Berlinale Film Festival last month. From gay partnered filmmakers Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau who always make such queer positive movies come this one which is somewhat of a totally unexpected revelation when the explicit sex that lasts a full 20 minutes at the start of this extraordinarily wonderful new French queer movie then surprisingly makes way for what turns into this rather tender and delightful tale of love-at-first-sight between these two cute young guys. Brave, sensuous and as romantic as hell, this one will have you clamoring for more.

2) Those People : This is one of those rare exceptional debut movies from an inspiring new filmmaker Joey Kuhn that seems to be the payback for having to sit through far too many indifferent indie films every day. This tale of unrequited love is both tender and tough, as it is when are in your early 20’s and you have been silently wrestling with it for the past 15 years. Kuhn however has a very mature approach to treating this story that is partly based on his own life. and he ensures that we are completely engaged from the opening credits to the very end. Every year queer cinema discovers a fresh new voice that is capable of taking the medium to a higher and different plane, our feeling is that Joey Kuhn could just be one that fits this bill for 2016.

 

1)  Viva : This compelling melodrama set in Cuba in the gritty underbelly of Havana’s nightlife in the world of drag queens far removed from the picturesque parts of the city that are reserved for tourists. It follows one young man’s struggle to find his own way out of a life of poverty as he discovers he has a remarkable talent that comes alive when is on stage and in drag. Electrifying performances from an unknown cast makes this movie a sheer joy that will absolutely love. We should add that it was submitted for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Picture but not by Cuba, but by Ireland. This film is the work of two talented Irish Filmmakers, one of whom could barely speak Spanish. It makes you appreciate that the G in LGBT also stands for global.

 

For the Complete Schedule and Tickets check out http://mifofilm.com/