Wicked Queer Boston’s LGBTQ+ Film Festival is not just one of the longest-running Queer film festivals in the world, but it’s also one of QUEERGURU’s favorites. It’s a contrast to the well-staffed BFI Flare in London we have just left, as it’s an all-volunteer organization that always produces an exciting, eclectic program of the best of new queer cinema.

Their mission is to build community and to celebrate Queer storytelling and filmmaking through the uplifting of voices and stories not yet heard and to present and preserve the vibrancy of our histories.

QUEERGURU is so proud to be a MEDiA SPONSOR of WICKED QUEER for yet another year and as we had early access to the program, we have been able to complete our TOP PICKS OF MUST-SEE LIST ……. it even includes one World Premiere! 

Barbara Forever, a fascinating, intimate portrayal of the pioneering lesbian film-maker, feminist activist, lover, and artist. With an archived collection of over eighty films, plus a treasure trove of memorabilia, director Brydie O’Connor struck gold when she began her research into the life and times of the inimitable lesbian movie queen.

Drunken Noodles follows an art student named Adnan (Laith Khalifeh), who comes to New York for a summer internship at an art gallery. He is young, gay, horny, and presumably single, so the city streets quickly lead him to cruising spots where desire lives and thrives. The film opens by giving us a portal into Adnan’s sexual encounters and history, told in three chapters sequenced in reverse chronological order.  In Drunken Noodles, writer-director Lucio Castro powerfully depicts a restless, almost chaotic sexual energy that many queer people know intimately.

ON THE SEA. Helen Walsh has created something very special here with her thoughtful and realistic portrayal of two men connecting in a rural community in Wales. Our middle-aged hero, Jack, has been married to his childhood sweetheart, Maggie, for decades, and one night at a birthday celebration in a pub, Jack goes to intervene when he witnesses a rugged stranger get into an altercation with some locals, but Maggie stops him: ‘it’s not your fight’. The following day, Jack sees that newcomer Daniel has found work on his friend Bernie’s boat The pacing is slow and atmospheric. This is the kind of slowly-paced movie that we love, think ‘The History of Sound’, and here it lends credibility to the development of a relationship between a man with a life to lose and another with no such ties.

The World Premiere of  THE DIVINE TRAGEDY the latest film from award-winning Mexican filmmaker Sergio Tovar Velarde is an event you will not want to miss.  Its the tale of two totally different gay half-brothers; Cristain is getting divorced after his 25-year reunion falls apart, and has to learn how tp get out into the world again.  Meanwhile, the younger Ray is a sex addict who seems to live out his life in a non-stop series of orgies, and for the first time in their lives, the brothers end up as roommates.  Velarde has a perceptive way of showing how totally different contemporary queer ‘relationships’ work, and what’s even more refreshing, unlike  most American queer filmmakers, he has no hesitation in making the sex scenes full on 

The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo (2025) , the remarkable debut feature of 31-year-old Chilean filmmaker Diego Céspedes, follows Lidia, a twelve-year-old girl, as she navigates fear and prejudice when this illness threatens her queer family. According to local legend, the disease spreads between two men through a single glance — the moment they fall in love. As accusations mount against her family, Lidia must discover whether this myth is real or not, accompanied by her inseparable friend Julio, who clearly wishes he were something more.  Winner of the prestigious. Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes is the kind of film that is at once beautiful, heartbreaking, and life-affirming. It is not to be missed.  

Inspired by Arthur Rimbaud’s visionary poem Une Saison En Enfer, in Uchronia we meet the ghost of Rimbaud who travels through history to encounter revolutionaries and queer freaks.  Together with his sidekick, the ghost of Emma Goldman, he revisits various key players from our past to try to understand why modern-day queers and others are so accepting of such a messy current status quo in life. Ieropolus combines archival footage and photographs with re-enactments and reinventions featuring the aforementioned characters to make his point.  Uchronia is not easy viewing. There is so much going on, the highly visual psychedelic avant-garde experience jumps from theme to theme and character to character very quickly – in the same restless manner as Rimbaud’s poem. It’s a hard-hitting, jarring study of the state of the queer nation, power and identity. You should, however, watch and pay attention, and you’ll be glad you did. It’s a thought-provoking vigil on humanity. 

WICKED QUEER FILM FEST  4/4 – 4/13 FULL PROGRAM DETAILS Official Website: http://www.wickedqueer.org

for full reviews on over 2000 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