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It’s just over a week away from the Opening Night of the 38th Edition of Boston’s WICKED QUEER the fourth oldest LGBTQ+ film festival in North America and the largest LGBTQ+ media event in New England. It’s one of QUEERGURU’s fav Fests ……(we actually are a Media Sponsor of the Event) because its carefully curated program that covers most of the queer spectrum always invigorates our Team. Whether it be laughing hysterically, watching love blossom, or people discovering their own truths and celebrating that.
If you cannot make it to Boston (shame on you …) then you’ll be delighted to hear that this is a hybrid Festival with many of the in-person screenings available on Wicked Queer’s XERB.tv channel the next day through April 30.
As is our custom, Queerguru have scoured the entire program to come up with our own list of recommendations: these may not necessarily include all the very best films but they are nevertheless OUR TOP PICKS OF MUST-SEE MOVIES. … (so here in alphabetical order)
Being Bebe: Newbie filmmaker EMILY BRANHAM took a shine to BeBe aka MARSHALL NGWA back in 2006 before the world came to know about him. Then the tall good-looking man from Cameron in West Africa was living in Minneapolis Minnesota and doing amateur drag in a local gay bar. Even then he stood out as his costumes and performances were heavily immersed and inspired by his African Culture. After Bebe was the first-ever winner of Ru Paul’s Drag Race she had a roller coaster life of rags to riches and back again which she shares with disarming honesty that makes this doc so compelling and such a sheer joy to watch.
P.S. you may also like to check out Queerguru’s interview with the Star, the Director and the Producer https:// queerguru.com/talking-about-being-bebe/
We are so thrilled that the programmers selected BEING THUNDER. It Is the heart-touching tale of SHERENTÉ HARRIS, a two-spirit genderqueer teenager from the NARRAGANSETT TRIBE in Rhode Island. Sherenté an articulate and determined teen has the full support of her family and most of her tribe. However French filmmaker STEPHANIE LAMORRE‘s camera captures bias from some of the judges in the traditional shawl dance competitions Sherenté loves to participate. No spoilers here but there is a scene when Sherenté is surrounded by her family waiting to see which Colleges will offer her a place that will bring tears to your eyes.
COP SECRET It is obvious that the Icelandic director (Hannes Halldórsson) and the two main stars (Egill Einarsson, Auðunn Blöndal) who also were co-writers, are huge fans of the action movie genre. The biggest source of fun in the satire Cop Secret is to play action movie Bingo as all of the tropes of Hollywood’s biggest cash cow are meticulously played out.
It opens with a set-piece car chase with screeching tires, throbbing background music, big crashes, and square-jawed policemen breaking all the rules. However, set in Reykjavik, Iceland that has a population half the size of Boise, Idaho it immediately becomes clear that while the ambition is pure Hollywood this not so throbbing metropolis is more awkwardly provincial.
Trans filmmaker Lyle Kash’s directorial/writing debut Death and Bowling is an extraordinary achievement. Not just because in a groundbreaking movie Kash cast all the roles in the movie with transgender actors, but his spiritual drama gives a very personal insight which we assume are some reflections on his own journey. The main theme of this somewhat experimental piece of filmmaking is having a real sense of belonging on many different levels. Kash’s script with its unexpected plot twists is a piece of subtle fine writing which made the film an unexpected joy to watch.
FIREBIRD is an enormously satisfying and complete film, and it has been playing at every single queer film fest we have covered this year. It tells a full tale of life, and love, and loss from its beginning right up to an end that could never need or want a sequel. PEETER REBANE‘s story of two Soviet military recruits, a pilot officer and a private, falling in love on a military base during the 70s cold war, is based on a true story. Skeptical as we are about stories ‘based on’ truth, people’s ages and weights on dating profiles might make that same claim, there is an undeniably human element to this story that grips the heart and mind with a sense of both individuality and history
(P.S. you may also like to check out Queerguru’s interview with the Writer/ Director and his Co-Writer/Star https:// queerguru.com/peteer-rebane-tom-prior-talk-about-their-estonian-queer-romance-firebird/ )
Canadian trans filmmaker Chase Joynt confidently left the recent Sundance Film Festival clutching two awards, knowing he has been successful in a rare achievement. His sophomore feature-length documentary Framing Agnes is even better than his remarkable debut No Ordinary Man which he had co-directed with Aisling Chin-Yee.
In this new movie, Joynt gently chips away on how being transgender is so widely misunderstood mainly by our sheer ignorance. His film continues an important message to dispel so many long help myths as it gives such dignity and grace as part of a continuing dialogue about the transgender community. ‘
PS You may want to check out Queerguru’s interview with the filmmakers https://queerguru.com/filmmakers-chase-joynt-and-morgan-m-page-talk-about-framing-agnes-one-of-the-very-best-queer-films-at-sundance-2022/
GEMMEL and TIM: This very timely and extremely well-measured doc will probably leave most people angry. It’s about the lives and widely publicized deaths of Gemmel “Juelz” Moore and Timothy “Tim” Dean two gay Black men who died of a meth overdose at the Laurel Street apartment of Democratic donor, Ed Buck. The story that the media presented was hatefully homophobic and racist and went to great lengths to defend the fake reputation of Buck who is finally locked up behind bars. We all need to watch this one.
P.S. You may like to check out Queerguru’s interview with filmmaker Michiel Thomas https://queerguru.com/michiel-thomas-talks-about-filming-the-harrowing-stories-of-gemmel-and-tim/
MARSCAPONE : The opening scenes of this delectable new Italian queer dramedy is set to send shivers down the backs of quite a few gay men in long-term relationships. A rather oblivious Antonio is abruptly told by his long-time husband Lorenzo that their marriage is over as he has fallen in love with someone else. Kudos to the co-directors for their intelligent take on urban queer love and life. Also for ensembling such a talented (and very handsome) cast to live it out so authentically, and proving that we all need some drama in our lives,
Since 1996 when East Palace, West Palace was the first Mainland Chinese movie with an explicitly homosexual theme was released, there have been very few films to follow its lead. Like with MONEYBOYS it is deemed too unsafe to make Chinese queer film actually in situ, so filmmakers such as Taiwan/Austrian C.B. Yi use Taiwan as a stand-in location. C.B. Yi’s film shines a light on the less explored area of LGBTQIA+ issues in China which may surprise much of his audience. This is a love story set against a background of survival which for many young men …… gay and straight ……is hustling. It gives these boys born in rural villages a way out of the basic poverty-stricken their families lead.
My Fiona: Jane and Fiona are besties, they work together in their own start-up, they met their partners together. When Fiona commits suicide without warning and without a goodbye note Jane, her wife, her mother, her therapist and her son are all left trying to find an answer as to why it happened.
Jane (Jeanette Maus) holds on to the memory of her friend by becoming the babysitter of Fiona’s son Bailey. Bailey (Elohim Nycalove) is escaping into his own imaginary world and Jane tries to connect to him through play. His other mother Gemma (Corbin Reid) throws herself into her work, refusing to let her colleagues and competitors see a hint of weakness in her performance. Jane and Gemma see little pieces of the Fiona they miss in each other and eventually moments of mutual comfort turn into acts of shared love.
Wildhood is a beautiful queer coming of age story set within Canada’s first nation Mi’kmaq people, a community over 14,000 years old, based in rural Nova Scotia. The road movie introduces us to Link, (Phillip Lewitski), a Two-Spirit, half Mi’kmaq teenager, and his younger half-brother Travis (Avery Winters-Anthony). The term Two-Spirit loosely refers to queer first nation people – a more detailed indigenous definition is the intersection of the relationship to land, gender, sexuality, ceremony, and culture.
WICKED QUEER Boston's LGBTQ+ Film Festival will runs April 7-17 To see the whole program and book tickets for person and online checkout https://www.wickedqueer.org/festival
For the full reviews of these films and over 1500 other queer movies check out https://queerguru.com/ and whilst you are there be sure to subscribe to get all the latest raves and rants on queer cinema ….. even better IT’s FREE
