Ten years after OUTshine Film Festival (formally Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival) started in 1998, it gave birth to its younger offshoot in Fort Lauderdale. Slightly ironic as the city a mere 30 miles away, has actually become one of the top cities that LGBTQ seniors chose to retire.
Miami itself is known as a major international fashionable destination for culture and the arts (its home to ART Basel the most prestigious art exhibition in the world) . It seemed logical to the OUTshine Organizers that Miami should share their queer film programming expertise with the neighboring LGBTQ community. Despite the fact that Fort Lauderdale is generally known as a far less diverse community, the eclectic selection of indie queer films was an immediate success.
Now despite the CoVID Lockdown, the 12th Edition of OUTshine Fort Lauderdale is about to kick off. Most of this years program will be streaming online ….. and the good part of that is it will be accessible to the whole of Florida.
It will also include this year’s festival will feature Cowboys as the OUTshine Drive-OUT film at the Pier Marina and they will also host livestreamed special events with cocktail happy hours, talent and Q & A sessions as a way to virtually tie the community together.
As usual the Queerguru Team have gone through the entire Program to create our list of Movies Not To Miss. Here they are in alphabetical order:
Ask Any Buddy This is a wonderful trip down memory lane for a look back at a history of gay sex, or more accurately, gay porn. Archivist Evan Purchell has combed his massive private collection of hundreds of films churned out by the gay adult film industry throughout the.. ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s to make this fascinating compilation/mish-mash..
Cowboys is about the unshakeable bond between a father and his transgender son. Jo/Joe’s deeply religious mother cannot accept his gender identity, so he and his father plan to run away to Canada. This beautiful heart-string-pulling movie is the sophomore film from ANNA KERRIGAN’ which deservedly won her the BEST SCREENPLAY AWARD and a BEST ACTOR AWARD FOR STEVE ZAHN at Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year
Parvis with his bleached blonde hair has never acclimated to the small northern German city Hildesheim like his middle-class supermarket-owning parents. He still yearns for the life he left behind in Tehran, which is surprising as a gay man, life couldn’t have been a bed of roses. When he gets arrested for shoplifting and given 120 hours of community service in a refugees camp, NO HARD FEELINGS turns into a queer story of race, belonging and love
NO ORDiNARY MAN is the very compelling story of musician BILLY TIPTON who has iconic status in the trans community. Tipton’s story starts with his death in 1989 when after decades living as a closeted trans man, his ‘secret’ was discovered and his very successful life just became a tawdry tabloid story . This intriguing documentary tells the true story.
With his sumptuous SUMMER OF 85, French queer auteur François Ozon mixes camp, queerness, and thriller elements into a sun-drenched romance-turned-tragedy set on the coast of Normandy. Told in flashbacks and metafiction, the film perfectly captures the era in which it takes place, using subdued 16mm film and precise 1980s fashion.
Unlike many queer coming-of-age love stories, Summer of 85 doesn’t dwell on its young characters’ coming out. They are not plagued by sexual repression, which frees the film up to fully portray their desire and youthful sexuality. It also brings to light other, more esoteric elements of infatuation and devotion, questioning whether it is, ultimately, we ourselves who project onto others the personas that we fall in love with.
THE STRONG ONES this debut feature film Chilean writer/director OMAR ZÚÑIGA HIDALGO is a beautifully executed queer love story that is a near perfect as it could be. Lucas has just won a scholarship to go study in Canada so he leaves his home in Santiago to go say goodbye to his sister who lives in small coastal town in the South. Whilst he is there he also says ‘hello’ to handsome broody Antonio a local fishing vessel’s boatswain.
The two men have an electrifying chemistry together and the screen literally sizzles when they are together. Seeing the two of them in nothing except sweatshirts and underwear dancing together is one of hottest scenes we have seen in for a very long time
A WORM IN MY HEART Once in a blue moon we come across a new fresh and extraordinary voice. Queer Irish filmmaker PAUL RICE is one such case and his debut feature documentary is about his desire to experience a country where getting LGBTQ rights was extremely difficult and even dangerous. Undertaking a journey right across thee whole if Russia with his crew of one who is also his fiance was both foolhardy and brave With his infectious passion for stepping out of his comfort made for a film that you will want to see time and time again
OUTshine FORT LAUDERDALE VIRTUAL EDITION STREAMING: DECEMBER 3 - 6, 2020 https://outshinefilm.com/buy-tickets
