Queerguru’s TOP PICKS OF MUST SEE MOVIES at Fort Lauderdale/Miami Editions of OUTSHINE FILM FESTIVAL

OUTshine LGBTQ+ Film Festival is the largest LGBTQ+ cultural arts event in South Florida. This year it is holding a Fort Lauderdale Edition immediately followed by a Miami Beach Edition, then naturally an Online Edition all in October

Miami Beach is one of Queerguru’s home towns so we know OUTshine is everything you want in a film festival… inviting, glowing, and eclipsing all others before it. Their mission is to inspire, entertain, and educate; encouraging a sense of community through international and culturally diverse film, video, and other media that offer historical and contemporary perspectives on the LGBTQ+ experience.

As usual Programming Director Joe Bilancio and his Team have excelled at scheduling a wonderfully diverse Festival with some of the very best new queer movies that cover the whole LGBTQA+ spectrum.

Our reviewers have diligently sat through it all to be able to give you OUR TOP PICKS OF MUST SEE MOVIES

“All Shall Be Well “is a new lesbian drama from Hong Kong director Ray Yeung that is moving and beautifully made. It opens with a scene from the everyday life of two women, shopping at street markets and then unloading the food at home. We intuit that they might be lovers, especially as they prepare a meal together wordlessly in synch, with the familiarity of a very long-term couple.

Ray Yeung has cleverly used the family drama genre to uncover the truth behind the “acceptance” of queer people. Without carefully planned documentation for our estates, we risk leaving our partners disempowered, even homeless and broke. It is an important film with great writing and acting that will hopefully be seen by a wide international audience. All Shall be Well won this year’s prestigious Teddy Award for Best Feature at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Just as you think there can’t possibly be many more high-profile queer figures from the past for film makers to profile, up pops another compelling documentary. This time the spotlight shines on pioneering 1960s Black trans soul musician/performer Jackie Shane. Any Other Way – The Jackie Shane Story details the extraordinary journey of Shane whose star shone brightly in the 1960s before she abruptly disappeared in the 1970s, remaining a recluse for fifty years until a brief comeback before her death in 2019.

A fascinating tale of talent, glamour and activism from another era. An uncompromising life, well lived. As Shane asked “Do you come to look, or to play?”

THE ASTRONAUT LOVERS :In this romantic comedy from Argentinian Teddy Award Winner Marco Berger (one of Queerguru’s very favorite queer filmmakers) Javier Orán and Lautaro Bettoni are Pedro and Maxi, friends from childhood reunited years later at a beach house with a group of friends, during a weekend. Well chosen locations, camera angles that provide intimacy and the appeal of the two male leads are the hooks in this talky picture that strongly, refers to Marco Berger´s early films where tension is latent but nothing erupts. There is an additional ingredient in Astronauts´ story, Pedro and Maxi agree on playing a game: to tell their friends they are interested on each other as a couple.

DUINO In a kind of real life Call Me By Your Name meets Saltburn, Argentinian film maker Juan Pablo de Pace and his friend Andrés Pepe Estrada have written a touching memoir of unrequited teenage love, how it impacts our emotions growing up and how our romantic memories change with time. It’s a subject which resonates with many gay men and is why this movie is so affecting.

Some 18 months ago Italian/American queer filmmaker Marco Calvani unexpectedly found himself staying in Provincetown for 6 months in the off season. This is the time of year when this gay mecca at the tip of Cape Cod, is completely empty of all the summer tourists and has a full time population of just 3000 souls. Its when Calvani fell in love …… with the town that is …. and the result is that he ended up writing/directing High Tide his debut feature film.

I’m not sure how Calvani pulled it off but for a small budget feature (shot in just 14 days) it also has a remarkable first class cast of supporting actors that included Marisi Tomei, Bill Irwin, Todd Flaherty and Tangerine’s Mya Taylor. But even so despite their performances , and an exceptional one from the remarkably talented Pigossi, (the actual real-life BF of Calvani) the real star is Provincetown.

PS You may like to check out QUEERGURU’s interview with the filmmaker HERE)

When Queerguru interviewed out and proud queer Iraqi drag queen/activist/writer/actor/journalist Amrou Al-Kahdi in 2017 it was obvious to us that our paths would cross again. Based in London at the time they were known as Glamrou and the founder and star of Denim the drag superstar group, and managed to make short films as well.

Now they have written + directed their debut feature-length movie, an uplifting and edgy queer love story called LAYLA which created quite a buzz when it premiered in Sundance. Layla is the tale of a non-binary Muslim drag queen (an award-worthy performance by Bilal Hasna) who lives in a small cluttered apartment in London’s Soho with a coterie of very colorful drag friends. It’s a vivacious sight and is part of the uplifting energy that Al-Khadi has imbued with throughout the whole film.

Lesvia, a new documentary currently in the festival circuit, is a Sapphic confection. Cinematographer/director/producer Tzeli Hadjidimitriou who refers to herself as “a double lesbian… a woman who grew up on Lesbos and is also a lesbian.”

Hadjidimitriou has put her heart, soul and vision into this production for decades. In 2012 she published “A Girl’s Guide to Lesbos.” For the next decade she filmed, shot interviews, and collected archival photos of the local lesbian community for this film. She still spends half of each year living on the island.

Be prepared to shed tears during Lost Boys and Fairies, a beautiful, heart-breaking, thought-provoking British drama mini-series which explores the world of adoption through the lens of Cardiff-based gay couple Gabriel (Sion Daniel Young) and Andy (Fra Fee). Our reviewer not only gave it 5 Stars but declared it was one of the best things he viewed this year. Bring tissues.

The stars aligned when film director Don Hardy decided to make Linda Perry the subject of his next documentary feature. You may be thinking, “Who’s Linda Perry? Sounds familiar, but…” If you were alive and kicking and near a radio or TV in the early 90’s, you probably remember” What’s Up?” the smash hit from 4 Non Blondes.

Linda shares her stories of childhood abuse and adolescent self-abuse, and when the telling gets rough, Hardy lightens things up by illustrating them with animated sequences done by Studio Linguini. Indeed, this entire film is genius. It is a fine, sensitive, and engrossing film which deserves to be seen widely

OUT: Two small town boys in love in a conservative European society plan to live their relationship openly when they move to Amsterdam while studying movie making and enjoying what the big city may bring. Once there they realise there are new experiences for them individually and together

We loved the way the film has been shot, the handheld camera sequences with spontaneity in the dialogues and actions, are a tribute to Cinema Verité techniques.

Salt Water :This moving debut movie from aspiring Colombian filmmaker Steven Morales Pineda is the touching story of 33 year old Jacobo reconnects with José Luis, a fifty-year-old Catholic priest after they hadnt seen each other for some 20 years, He wants to deal with their unresolved past and gets some closure is this heart-wrenching story of human connections and forbidden love

Here is a little pop trivia quiz: Who wrote “I’ll Be There for You”, the theme song of “Friends”? Who wrote the music and lyrics for the Broadway production of “The Color Purple? Who wrote “September” for Earth, Wind, and Fire?

I would have been stumped before I saw this fabulous documentary, directed by Alexis Manya Spraic, about the fabulously prolific and fascinating Allee Willis.

YOUNG HEARTS is a tender story of young queer love that premiered at Berlinale. Fourteen-year-old Elias (Lou Goossens) is growing up in a nice European family and has the loving care of his grandfather who owns a farm somewhere in the Netherlands. One day, he is aware they have new neighbors, afterwards at school he meets Alexander (Marius De Saeger) and his whole world changes. When it all later meets with the disproval of his family, its Elias’s grandfather that rescues him and saves the day for these two young hearts.

OUTSHINE LGBTQ+ Film Festival Miami 
& Fort Lauderdale
begins on 10/17 and will end on 10/27 
To see the whole program and book tickets 
https://outshinefilm.com/

for full reviews of over 2000 queer films check out 
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