Queerguru loves being an Official Media Sponsor for WICKED QUEER Boston’s LGBTQ + Film Festival. It’s the 4th oldest queer Film Fest in the US and the largest LGBTQ+ media event in New England. Even more important for the Queerguru Team is that is just a Ferry ride away from our PTown Base. But if you are not that close you can always watch the Fest online too.
The Fall Edition of Wicked Queer is WQ: Docs which celebrates the rich and vibrant true stories of the LGBTQ+ community and the ever-evolving art of the documentary. It was such a smash hit in its first year that the WQ Team is now going to make it an annual event.
It’s hardly an open secret that documentaries is probably our favorite film genre because they are an excellent way to learn about our community’s history and celebrate the present.
THESE ARE QUEERGURU’S TOP PICK OF MUST-SEE FILMS
BAMBI : This Teddy Award Winning Film was the first time we really noticed the work of French queer filmmaker Sébastien Lifshitz. We had reviewed previous work of his like Wild Side (also a Teddy Award Winner) but there was something totally mesmerizing about Bambi. This is a captivating profile of Marie-Pierre Pruvot, an Algerian-born trans woman who had a long and prominent career as a dancer and showgirl in Paris in the 1950s and 1960s, under the stage name Bambi, before becoming a high school teacher. This a Director’s cut of the original 2013 film: PLEASE DO NOT MISS IT
HAPPY CLOTHES Iconic New York stylist, costumier, and fashion designer Patricia Field has been breaking fashion rules for over 50 years. One of New York’s original downtown club kids, Field opened her first fashion store in 1966. The store, in various locations, survived for 50 years before Field closed it in 2016 to focus on costume design and styling for the film and TV industries. Happy Clothes profiles Field’s work from her early days dressing the elite of New York, through her years as a fashion designer with shows during NY Fashion Week, to her uber-successful film and TV work. If you love SEX AND CITY (for which Fields surprisingly won only one Emmy) or THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA for which she was nominated for an Oscar, then you will love this.
HIDDEN MASTER – The Legacy of George Platt Lynes The name of George Platt Lynes is one not to be overlooked and this documentary is directed by Sam Shahid.will bring his work to the audience it so deserves The film shows the shadows and lights in the life of this visionary creator from the 1920s who made visual statements decades before Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, and particularly, Robert Mapplethorpe.
Platt Lynes was also the first photographer to portray frontal nudes that transmitted the joy of sexuality and its bonds with the gay community that lived in the shadows in those days.
It’s Only Life After All”: Why the Indigo Girls Matter Alexandria Bombach’s 2023 documentary, screened at SXSW, Sundance, Atlanta, and Provincetown, is both blessed and cursed by an abundance of archival footage of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers performing and being interviewed over the years. The two have been writing and performing intelligent and out music for decades, managing to remain relatable to a spectrum of fans from radical lesbians to mainstream audiences.
I learned a few things from this film, which goes into Emily’s drinking problem and subsequent sobriety, as well as their trashing by NY Times music reviewer Jon Pareles. His needless hatchet job left wounds that were revisited throughout their career when they were frequently targeted by satirists. I could suggest several straight male artists whose oeuvre is far more deserving of this treatment (Billy Joel, anyone?).
Calling all bears, admirers, and allies. Cult web series Where The Bears Are is celebrated in Eduardo Aquino’s fabulous new documentary A Big Gay Hairy Hit – Where the Bears Are. This funny, heartfelt documentary tells the story of how three Hollywood film industry bears, tired of the lack of visibility of burly gay men on mainstream TV, decided to create and produce their own series which surprisingly became a huge hit.
Orlando, My Political Biography is a fantastic, award-winning documentary film by Spanish philosopher/director Paul Preciado. The documentary is a homage to trans/non-binary lives and Virginia Woolf’s classic 1928 novel, Orlando, A Biography. The original novel is based on the wild family history of Woolf’s lover, the aristocratic poet and novelist, Vita Sackville-West. The core story is about a male thirty-something poet, Orlando, alive during the reign of Elizabeth I, who falls asleep for a week and then wakes up as a woman. She then survives for hundreds of years without aging and meets key figures of English literary history along the way. It’s considered a feminist/trans classic.
Not for the faint-hearted, RAW! UNCUT! VIDEO! chronicles the rise and fall of homegrown gay porn studio Palm Drive Video, and explores how a devoted couple helped battle a devastating health crisis by promoting kinky sex.
This particular film is directed by Ryan White who said “After working on the film for 5 years, we’re about to (finally) release it this Spring – which is REALLY exciting!! But, we’ve also been having issues with Instagram repeatedly removing our account for no apparent reason. We’ve lost thousands of followers and supporters right before the launch of the film. In order to get the word out, we’ve put together a press release about the unfair removal by Instagram.”
WQ: DOCS 2023 begins on 11/10 and will end on 11/20 To see the whole program and book tickets https://www.wickedqueer.org/festival
for full reviews of over 1800 queer films check out www.queerguru.com and whilst you are there be sure to subscribe to get all the latest raves and rants on queer cinema …best of all its FREE
