There are two very different excellent coming-of-age movies on our radar right now that are heading for movie theatres very soon and you shouldn’t miss either of them
The first one is Cannes Grand Prix Winner CLOSE : a remarkably tender coming-of-age story from Belgium filmmaker Lukas Dhont. When Queerguru’s Contributing Editor Andrew Hebden reviewed the film at BFI Flare in London earlier this year he described it as a ‘wounded masterpiece’.
Its the story of an intense friendship between two thirteen-year-old boys Leo and Remi with a closeness that comes from a shared imagination that turns play into epic adventures. The closeness that makes each an arm and a leg in a shared body, running towards the future. Two halves not yet two wholes. To call them besties is an inadequate description of the kind of friendship that is only possible before wider life takes hold. Its when this freindship gets disrupted, life ie nevr quite the same.
Hebden wrote “Close aches tragedy and begs questions. Many people will find its journey difficult but also ultimately compelling. The evocation of childhood is universal however its sadness is very particular.”
A24 Films will release the movie into theatres on January 27th 2023
Beautiful Beings (Berdreymi) by . Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson is Iceland’s Iceland’s Official Entry for Best International Feature at the Academy Awards!
Addi, a boy raised by a clairvoyant mother, decides to adopt a bullied misfit into his gang of outsiders. Left to their own devices, the boys explore aggression and violence but also learn about loyalty and love. As the group’s behavior escalates towards life-threatening situations, Addi begins to experience a series of dreamlike visions. Can his newfound intuition guide him and his friends back to a safer path, or will they dive irrevocably into further violence?’
The coming-of-age drama world premiered at the Berlin Film Festival last year and won the Label Europa Cinemas Award. and it went on to pick up accolades at Biografilm Festival, Off Camera, Stockholm, Taipei and Thessaloniki film festivals, among others.
The film is being released by Altered Innocence one of Queerguru’s fav edgy film distributors who will host the U.S. premiere for the film at the Quad in New York City on Jan. 13 and will be expanding from there.
