OUTshine Film Festival is about to kick off its second Fest of 2021 : the Fall is the time for Fort Lauderdale to be front and center. It may be the ‘younger sister’ of the Miami Beach Event each spring but as they share the same management and excellent programming team it has gained itself a great reputation in recent years.
Their Mission statement claims the Fest is OUTrageous. OUTspoken. And OUTstanding in what they deliver. At Queerguru we have scored the program in fine detail and we think they actually have got the right schedule to live up to their aspirations.
The 13th Editon of Fort Lauderdale OUTshine runs from 14th – 24th October and as is the norm nowadays has a mix of In-Person Screenings and Online Streaming: you’ll need to refer to the official program to see the exact schedule.
Meanwhile here is QUEERGURU'S LIST OF THE MUST-SEE FILMS OF THE FESTBOULEVARD: A Hollywood Story. In 1950 DICKSON HUGHES and RICHARD STAPLEY, two young songwriters and romantic partners approached GLORIA SWANSON with a new Musical they had written just for her. The 50+-year-old star still glowing in the reception of SUNSET BOULEVARD FILM, had been champing at the bitt as offers of film roles had simply dried up. So she persuaded the couple to change their plans and write a musical based on Sunset Boulevard for her to recreate Norma Desmond. This previously untold story, the latest fascinating doc from Emmy Award Winner Jeffrey Schwarz is what happened to that musical and also the men’s love affair .
It is impossible to overlook the influence of Federico Fellini’s 8½ in Antony Hickling’s Down in Paris, especially in the surreal bits of the film when reality and illusion collide to make way for a dazzling humane effect. A middle-aged film director wandering about in a glamourous city looking for inspiration and facing his demons head-on is a cinematic trope that never betrays if done in the right manner. Hickling who directs and stars as the troubled English filmmaker Richard, shooting his fifth film in Paris, puts himself under the spotlight by questioning the essence of an artist. The setting is Paris, a city where cinema is celebrated in all its glory and the story benefits a lot from it. France as a country knows how to respect films and its film directors. Every nook and corner of Paris tells a story and it feels like Hickling is operating in familiar territory.
FANNY, Award-winning Canadian documentarian Bobbi Jo Hart has this knack for uncovering queer stories that we may have heard of, but for the most part, are untold. Now she has turned her attention and cameras on Fanny the trailblazing all-female rock band from the 197O’s who never ever got the recognition they deserved. Hart’s wonderful uncovering of this exhilarating piece of queer/Filipino/female/music history is way past due and makes for such compelling viewing.
FIREBIRD is an enormously satisfying and complete film. 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.
JUMP DARLING : When you reach the end of the road you are on, what can you do? There are two answers, you stop or change direction. In CLORIS LEACHMAN’s final film made prior to her death, both these alternates are explored, and the poignancy is inescapable. Leachman plays Grams, the aging grandmother grown tired, frail, and distanced from the passions that engulfed her earlier years. Dreams of joining the ice capades are barely a memory. Facing a slow exit from her life, or the inertia of a retirement home, she grapples with what little sovereignty she has left. It is an exquisite swan song for one helluva wonderfully actress and person
MASCARPONE : 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,
POTATO DREAMS OF AMERICA queer filmmaker WES HURLEY’S excellent autobiographical tale of his journey from Russia as a young gay immigrant is the perfect choice for the opening night gala. Maybe a tad patchy in parts but it’s a joyous wee film with some wonderful surprises like an adorable JONATHAN BENNETT as Jesus and an almost unrecognizable LEA DELARIA giving a scene-stealing performance.
SWEETHEART: Throw aside any expectations that Marly Morrison’s film will be an achingly Gen Z teen zeitgeist movie and embrace the fact that it belongs to the classic British genre of sexually awkward teen meets nightmare seaside family holiday. Go with it because that is what makes its humiliating inevitability so sweet.
THE BEST FAMILIES Its been 12 years since Peruvian writer/director Javier Fuentes-León’s award-winning queer fantasy/romance UNDERTOW grabbed all our attention. Not just because an LGBTQ film from his country is still a rarity but because it was such a remarkable and wonderful ghost story. This tale of a married fisherman who struggles to reconcile his devotion to his male lover within his town’s rigid traditions was a major breakthrough for Fuentes-León and so it’s with quite exciting trepidation we get to review this latest film of his. No spoilers here, but he doesn’t disappoint.
The Perfect David (El perfecto David) is a tense yet poetic modern-day coming of age story. It accurately reflects an 18-year old’s transition into manhood, trying to fit into his new adult world when life goals, sexuality, and relationships are usually still a bit vague and sometimes temporarily heading in the wrong direction. Premiering at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, Argentinian writer and director Felipe Gomez Aparicio, along with co-writer Leandro Custo, have drawn on personal experiences to tell a tale of a young man’s pursuit of the perfect body, drawing on themes of perfection, control and co-dependency – issues affecting many of today’s young men.
The Sixth Reel : We think it is no secret that the multi-talent that is Charles Busch was born in the wrong era. He is the perfect epitome of a glamorous Hollywood star of the 1930s and 1940s: he doesn’t just look the part, but he totally lives it. So convincingly with all the mannerisms and melodrama, watching his new movie. we revel in turning the clock back for the next 90 minutes
Over the past few years, OUTshine has shown us that Israeli queer films are some of the very hottest (think Eytan Fox’s Yossi and Jaeger for example). The Swimmer by Adam Kalderon keeps up with this tradition with an excellent sizzling drama where lust gets confused with love. This is a special preview of this movie that we know is destined to be a new queer classic ….. or we’ll eat our speedos.
For the full program and how to book tickets
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