t’s time to OUTSHINE again. QUEERGURU has a very soft spot for The Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Fest as not only is this our winter hometown, but also it started in 1998 the same year our Brit Editor-In-Chief landed in Miami Beach for the very first time.

The festival reflects the large local queer community offering an exciting program, that is so culturally diverse and that embraces the whole LGBTQ+ spectrum.  It’s one that is guided by its mission to inspire, entertain and educate that offer historical and contemporary perspectives on the LGBTQ+ experience.

Outshine is the largest Festival of its kind in South Florida and now has 80% of its program accessible online throughout the whole of the State. Queerguru are therefore very proud Media Sponsors of this exhilarating 10-day event and we have been fortunate enough to preview all the movies.

 

 

This then is OUR TOP PICKS OF MUST-SEE FILMS.

“Anais in Love” is a delightful new French rom-com, written and directed by a woman (Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet), which premiered at Cannes in 2021. The film does take a bit of patience. Not because its pace is slow (au contraire), but because its pace is fast. Anais (Anaïs Demoustier) is a 30-year-old who literally does not stop running, dashing from room to room indoors and peddling madly on her bicycle on the streets of Paris. She also talks and overshares incessantly, even when her listeners do not share a common language with her. She has huge problems with punctuality and commitments, as well as several other quirks, and she hurts others without seeming to care. Of course, she is also adorable, but I vowed not to fall for her. Naturally, by the close of the film, I had fallen hard, for both Anais and the film itself.  JL.

 

 

B Boy Blues is an impressive directorial debut by Jussie Smollett. His film version of James Earl Hardy’s iconic 1994 novel is about the romance between a couple of black men in New York. Class and culture clash when a college-educated magazine journalist from Brooklyn and a homeboy bike messenger from Harlem fall in love. Smollett has delivered a heartfelt comedy-drama full of ridiculously good-looking people. The all-black cast is an unapologetic celebration of African-American gay men.  RF.

 

 

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. While the satire is comprehensive rather than comic, this movie makes a virtue out of checking all the boxes. If you want the predictable familiarity of an action movie but with the benefit of a gay twist between the two hot heroes, then settle in with your bingo card and play along. Is there a Hollywood happy ending? You can bet your Hollywood ass.  AH.

 

 

FRAMING AGNES. 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. RWD.

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/

 

 

Girl Picture throws a bucket of emotions into the air and seems them beautifully land a la Jackson Pollock on a canvas of Finnish adolescent sexuality. Alli Haapasalo’s film is the story of three young women coming of age captured on three separate Fridays. Each of the young women is trying to resolve an inner conflict. Ronnko (Eleonoora Kauhanen) is desperate to connect to her sexuality, which, while definitely heterosexual has yet to find practical satisfaction. Emma  (Linnea Leino) is an aspiring figure skating champion who finds that the discipline of competition is overwhelming her sense of self. Mimmi (Aamu Milinoff) is feeling angry, displaced and abandoned as her mother starts to build a new family. AH.

 

 

Jimmy in Saigon. is a real standout film for me. This is a feature documentary by Los Angeles-based filmmaker Peter McDowell and executive producer Dan Savage. Peter chronicles the story of Jim, his eldest brother, a Vietnam War veteran. Jim was quite an alternative thinker and didn’t play by society’s rules. In early 1970 he dropped out of college even though that meant he was likely to be called up for the US army draft. This happened and he spent six months in Vietnam with the US army. Then, once back in the US for a few months, he surprises everyone by deciding to move back to Vietnam as a civilian, even though there is still a full-on war going on. He doesn’t give any reasons for his return to the war-torn country. What could be drawing him back to Saigon? Back in Vietnam, a year later, in 1972, when Jim was 24, he suddenly dies under mysterious circumstances whilst living in a poor part of Saigon. The family learns about Jim’s death by telegram but are not given many details re the cause of death. RF.

 

 

 

The opening scene of Lonesome resembles a Hollywood Western as our protagonist Casey (Josh Lavery) keeps pace with the sun while running away from his reality. He dons a cowboy hat and the classic blue jeans and white T-shirt combo that immediately endow him with an eye-candy-cum-rebellious persona. His face has the sharpness as well as the vulnerability of youth. Staying true to his young age, he doesn’t miss a chance to sleep with men, even at his lowest moments. His story is that of a rural gay man making his way into the big city. However, what he lacks is hope. His only redeeming quality is his libido. Lonesome treads familiar territory but is boosted by the decadent charm of Josh Lavery and the director’s reluctance to hold back during the ‘depraved’ moments of the narrative. DL.

 

 

Brian Vincent’s fascinating, albeit somewhat chaotic documentary is on the queer iconic East Village 80s painter Ed Brezinski.   Born in Detroit,  Brezinski studied photography in San Francisco and the moment he graduated he moved to NY where he always thought would /should be home. 

Brezinski was handsome and very charismatic and by using some wonderful archival footage and interviews with some of his surviving contemporaries,  Vincent painted a picture of a very likable larger-than-life character.  Even the people he managed to really annoy were happy to recount their interactions with Brezinski with a very definite fondness.

 

 

Manscaping : Having shaved his own head from the age of 13 this reviewer almost coughed up a furball when Queerguru’s Editor in Chief suggested that this documentary about hair was for me. Turns out this one-hour film, ostensibly about the barbershop, has more to say about the breadth of LGBTQ+ experience than you might expect. Manscaping succeeds because it introduces so many elements of the LGBTQ+ experience through a single vantage point. Racism, sexism, economic disadvantage, the struggle for self-love and acceptance are explored via hair without lecturing or condescension. 

P.S. You may also want to check out Queerguru’s interview with filmmaker Broderick Fox https://queerguru.com/broderick-fox-talks-about-manscaping-his-doc-about-three-queer-men-who-are-reimagining-the-traditional-barbershop/

 

 

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. RWD

 

 

Once A Year On Blackpool Sands is a gritty queer comedy-drama, set in the North of England in the early 1950s. Based on a true story, director Karlton Parris’s heart-warming film echoes the tradition of ‘kitchen sink’ dramas from that period. This film is based on his play of the same title which showed in both the UK and US.

The year is 1953. The Queen has recently had her coronation and post-war-time food rationing still exists in the UK. Eddy (Kyle Brookes) and Tommy (Macaulay Cooper) are miners, living and working in a poor close-knit Yorkshire mining community where everyone knows everyone else’s business. Not ideal if you’re queer and want to have fun. Homosexuality was still illegal in the UK and society was very homophobic so very few people were out and proud. Life for queers, especially in small towns and villages, was tough.

 

 

PAT ROCCO DARED In this colorful trip back in time, legendary queer filmmaker and trailblazing gay rights activist Pat Rocco shares his incredible life story as one of Hollywood’s original boundary-pushing pioneers. This really is a must-see film to fully understand the history of American queer culture and activism over the past 50 years. Rocco is the most famous gay person you might not have heard about before. Canadian documentary filmmaker Charlie David combines fantastic vintage footage, film clips, and interviews with Rocco and friends such as Phyllis Diller, to tell the story of Rocco, the activist, filmmaker, artist, and entertainer. RF

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THE SWIMMER : Erez, a talented young Israeli swimmer, is one of five swimmers selected for a special residential training camp. The swimmers are in competition with each other and the winner will be chosen to join the Israeli Olympic swimming team. Erez (Omer Perelman) meets the beautiful, muscular Nevo (Asaf Jonas), a fellow swimmer at the camp, who slowly awakens subconscious homosexual desires in Erez. However, they both have girlfriends and also have a tough Russian swimming coach (Dima) who does not want the competitors to have friendships with each other. Dima warns Erez to stay away from Nevo, but Erez can’t help himself. Erez and Nevo hang out together at the camp when not training and Erez clumsily attempts to act upon his feelings.

 

 

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.

 

 

Miami's OUTSHINE LGBTQ+ Film Fest will begin on 
Friday  April 22nd and ends on Sunday, May 1st  
To see the whole program and book tickets for 
person and online checkout 
https://outshinefilm.com/

For the full reviews of these films and over 1500 
other queer movies check out 
https://queerguru.com/ and whilst you are 
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