The 39th Edition of the Miami Film Festival is about to kick open its doors : as is the norm these days the program is divided into in-person screenings and a whole online schedule of movies too.  The Fest is known for its world-class platform for International and Ibero-American films which are aimed at the very diverse cosmopolitan community of Miami.  That naturally includes the large queer community and so here’s Queerguru’s take on the :GBTQA+ films that are being shown this year: starting with our 4 Top QUEER Picks 

 

Keep The Cameras Rolling : The Pedro Zamora Way is the moving story of Cuban\American HIV/AIDS educator and activist Pedro Zamora’s life and death. Pedro shot to the world’s attention in 1994 as the first person on weekly TV to be completely open about his HIV/AIDS status. Starring in season 3 of the then hugely popular MTV’s ground-breaking reality TV series, The Real World – the world’s first reality TV series – the very handsome, articulate Pedro did more to educate the world on living with HIV than anyone had done in the preceding decade of AIDS.

 

 

Mucho Mucho Amor : The Legend of Walter Mercado The legendary  86-year-old  Puerto Rican astrologer Walter Mercado hadn’t appeared on camera for a decade when filmmakers Kareem Tabsch and Cristina Costantini turned up on his doorstep with their crew.  This world megastar’s daily TV show had once beamed into over 150 million homes daily and although this fascinating documentary covers his sudden absence from the public eye, they focus mainly on his incredible journey to global fame.

His story starts when as a feminine young boy he became the center as a child healer in his remote rural village. He soon fled to the big city to study ballet and theater and got his first taste of success when he became a telenovela actor.  Between shoots, Mercado read his castmate’s palms backstage, which caught the attention of a Telemundo executive.  He was given his own spot on TV to ostensibly promote the telenovela but Mercado ever the ham, couldn’t resist building his part, dramatically threw in his astrological predictions, and literally overnight became a star.

 

 

Open Dialogues: Stories From The LGBTQ Community. This powerful wee documentary is exactly what most queer people would have loved to be able to view on the verge of ‘coming out’ as gay.  Listening to the stories of seven South Florida members of the LGBTQ community articulate on their own journeys is such an uplifting experience.

 

 

QUEENS OF THE REVOLUTION the story of a Cuban LGBTQ center that made such a difference. This is the filmmaker Rebecca Heidenberg‘s first feature film. It begins with the ritual of Ms. Cinthya dressing up for her performance at El Mejunje, a cultural center in Santa Clara, the capital of the Central Cuban province of Villa Clara. El Mejunje, under the direction of Ramón Silverio, is a revolutionary cultural Project that influences the minds of the people,it is inspired by union, no matter the differences, instead of division.The place, like a fabled Phoenix, opened its doors in 1991, in a difficult time known as the Special Period (several years of economic crisis due to the downfall of the Soviet Union and the reinforcement of the US embargo).

The film is one not to be missed since it provides an insight into an institution in Santa Clara, Cuba, and the head high of the protagonists bearing their lives their way, a su manera. Aleluya!

 

 

Also screening at the fest are

Borrowed  by Oscar Ernesto Ortega and Carlos Rafael Betancourt. David, a middle-aged painter and former Navy officer living in a secluded but beautiful shoreline house in the Florida Keys, breaks his willful isolation to do a portrait of a very special guest: young, edgy and openly gay Justin.

 

Camila Comes Out Tonight by Argentian filmmaker Inés Barrionuevo: When her grandmother becomes seriously ill, Camila is forced to move to Buenos Aires and leave behind her friends. Changing a liberal public high school for a traditional private institution will only heighten Camila’s fierce temperament. While coping with this turbulence and the trials of adolescence, she discovers her feelings for Clara, a classmate with a secret. 

Candela: a queer murder mystery set in Santa Domingo from director Andrés Farías

Everything went Fine : From legendary French queer auteur François Ozon comes the story of 85-year-old André, a brilliant retired museum curator, who asks his daughter] to help him end his life with the help of a clinic in neighboring Switzerland,

Jezebel: from Venezuelan filmmaker Hernán Jabes comes this psychological thriller group of upper-class youth, Lolo, Cacá, Eli and Alain, live carefree between drugs, games and love, until one day, Eli is brutally murdered. Sixteen years later, as Alain experiences a beautiful romance, the memories return only to reveal that Eli’s alleged murderer is not who everyone believed.