Tag: LGBT

Wrapping up Pride Month with the dirtiest LGBT films

Posted on by victorfraga

First and foremost: cinema is universal. This means that you don’t have to be LGBT in order to appreciate and be impact by an LGBT movie. That’s why we have decided to ask some of our dirty writers and contributors – regardless of their gender and sexuality – to pick they favourite LGBT film of all times. Film sensibility transcends all barriers.

The label LGBT can, of course be problematic. First of all, there is a flirting “Q” for “queer” and sometimes a flirting “I” for intersex”, which some people like to add to the end of the acronym, making it very difficult to memorise and borderline impossible to pronounce. But the biggest issue is in the fact that many LGBT(Q)(I) peopl prefer to shun the label in its entirety because they find it too limiting. They believe that distinguishing LGBT films from non-LGBT films can tokenise gay culture. We can see the rationale behind that.

Yet, at a time when discrimination and even criminalisation of LGBT people still prevails in many parts of the globe, it still makes sense to fly the flag, and to classify films as such. Hopefully this won’t be necessary in 50 years, but sadly right it is very much so. LGBT identity is still a major issue, and you need to break some eggs in order to make an equality omelette. Thankfully these dirty movies are here in order to help us in the fight against bigotry and intolerance.

These films have touched and moved our dirty boys and girls in more than one way. They have helped to change their lives, personality and, in some cases, revisit their identity. Maybe they could do the same to you! So read our heartfelt list of LGBT films and watch their respective trailers with an open mind. You too might become surprised!

Our dirty team has been sorted alphabetically (click on their names in order to accede to their dirty profile). We acknowledge that there is a shortage of ladies! Women – gay and straight, trans and cis, plus everything in between – please get in touch with us and make your dirty thoughts known. We need you on board!

1. Almiro Andrade (actor and writer; dirty boy since February 2016)

His favourite dirty LGBT movie is Women in Revolt (Andy Warhol, 1972):

“A deliciously filthy 1972 satire still extremely current at present days. Jackie Curtis is superb but Candy Darling stole the scene with her arrogant yet adorable posh housewife living in Central Park West : ‘Coming to me for money? Go out and earn it!’ ”

2. Francesco Bacci (journalist and translator; LGBT; dirty boy since May 2017)

His favourite dirty LGBT film is Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005):

“A movie that changed my life. Not only the cast is incredible – Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Williams are outstandin – but also the direction is very impressive. It’s such an emotional and gripping story. The bond between the protagonists is both tender and complex connection. Love here is equal and universal, a timely achievement for LGBTQI rights. A film impossible to forget.”

3. Alasdair Bayman (film critic; dirty boy since June 2017)

His favourite dirty LGBT movie is Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015):

“After becoming an admirer of Todd Haynes’ work through Poison (1991) and his Douglas Sirk homage, Far From Heaven (2002) I became a true lover of his work through Carol. Capturing love in a form that very few can on screen, Haynes and his two female leads, Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett, evoke all forms of this deeply human emotion in their relationship that the 1950s’ society seeks to reject. Melancholy, desire, longing and solace are all exhibited. Adapting the Patricia Highsmith The Price of Salt, Haynes’ film captures the era of Highsmith in steamy 1950s’ New York streets and a distorted 35mm print. Lastly, the lulling score of Carter Burwell adds a deeper compassionate edge to the piece.”

4. Angelo Boccato (journalist and blogger; dirty boy since December 2016)

His favourite dirty LGBT film is Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016):

“Intense and intimate, strong, tough but also delicate. The movie explores the major challenge of being gay and part of a minority that so many face, and it also shows some of the brutal aspects of patriarchal masculinity. The influence of Wong Kar Wai’ s work can be strongly seen, and the cast shines in leading the viewer through a complicated story. Moonlight is a pure jewel on black male identity, homosexuality and about love and how much we all need it.“

5. Jeremy Clarke (writer; dirty boy since December 2016)

His favourite dirty LGBT movie is Happy Together (Wong Kar Wai, 1997):

“A study of an on-off relationship of two Chinese men travelling in Buenos Aires, which is as far away on the planet from their Hong Kong hometown as you can get. The relationship functions as an uneasy metaphor for the then British Crown dependency Hong Kong’s uneasy relationship to mainland China. Hong Kong was handed back from British to Chinese rule in 1997.”

6. Victor Fraga (film critic and promoter; dirty papa since February 2016)

His favourite dirty LGBT movie is The Bitters Tears of Petra von Kant (RW Fassbinder, 1972)

“Fassbinder’s Lesbian love triangle isn’t just my favourite LGBT movie; it’s also my favourite movie of all times. The film title is even tattooed across my chest. Petra von Kant (Margit Carstensen) is a domineering fashion designer who preaches free love, and yet is unable to do as she says. She demands TLC from her lover Karen (Hannah Schygullah), and yet humiliates her sycophantic maid Marlene (Irm Hermann), who is profoundly infatuated with her boss.

I love The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant because it’s subversive on so many levels. Petra is the epitome of emotional incongruity, and she fully deserves the crocodile tears that she sheds. The film is based on a gay love triangle between Fassbinder and two of his associates, translated into a lesbian story. The controversial director had an amorous relationship with most people he worked with (men and women), and so the boundaries between fiction and reality and deeply twisted, just like Petra’s sentiments. Fassbinder is Petra. I am Petra. And this film is bigger than life.”

The image at the top of this article is also taken from The Bitters Tears of Petra von Kant.

7. Linda Marric (journalist and interviewer; dirty girl since January 2017)

Her favourite LGBT dirty movie is My Beautiful Laundrette (Stephen Frears, 1985):

“Easily one of the most iconic British films of the 1980s, set against the background of Thatcherite greed and race riots, My Beautiful Launderette came crashing onto our screen with a bang. Adapted from Hanif Kureishi’s book of the same name, and directed by the great Stephen Frears, the films mixes poetic realism with gritty social drama to bring B. Johnny (Daniel Day Lewis) and Omar (Gordon Warnecke) are the two star crossed lovers from either side of the divide who must overcome their insurmountable differences in the hope that love will one day conquer all.”

8. Pedro Miguel (multimedia artists, filmmaker and writer; dirty boy since August 2016)

His favourite dirty LGBT film is To Die Like a Man (João Pedro Rodrigues, 2009):

“One of those movies I need to revisit every other year, as painful as the experience might be. Like a fist to the heart, everything is very grim and violent (if not borderline depressing). And yet, these characters have led me to their world, and have given me much needed perspective in times of fear of becoming too deeply aware of myself – something crushingly familiar to any member of the LGBT community.

It was Tónia’s (Fernando Santos) loneliness that made fall in love with this jarringly beautiful portrait. She finds solace in the midst of her daily turmoil by doing mundane tasks like feeding her dog. A veteran drag queen at a Lisbon gay club during the 1980s, clouded with a well-known fear of growing old in an unforgiving scene, she rolls with the punches of a toxic relationship with a much younger lover named Rosário (Alexander David) and an estranged son (Chandra Malatitch) who, like all the other men in her life, takes advantage of her.

She’s extremely devoted to her faith, and has learned to dismiss her desire to go through gender reassignment surgery. Suspended in space and time, the film drastically changes its pace to a dreamlike state: an unexpected red saturates the scene now, as they wander in the shade of the flora of their backyard, and chant. A funeral march, one might even say.”

9. Maysa Monção (writer; not LGBT; dirty girl since February 2016)

Her favourite dirty LGBT movie is The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland, 2014)

“This is a tender and strong story about two women that express their love for each other in a way that only females can do. In reality, it is the oppressed partner that wears the trousers. The title also refers to a butterfly, a animal that represents change. Every girl becomes a woman, just like a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. Your body changes, and then you must fly!

Plus the cinematography is absolutely mesmerising! The details and the research for the right lenses to reveal each colour is fantastic. I wish every man I ever loved had the same sensibility that Peter has it.”

10. Steve Naish (writer, dirty boy since April 2017)

His favourite dirty LGBT film is Point Break (Kathryn Bigelow, 1991):

“It may not appear, at least on the surface that Point Break offers a homoerotic experience. But as Anthony Manzi discusses in his excellent essay ‘Point “Heart” Break, or: Why Bodhi and Johnny Utah Just Want to Bang Each Other’ you have to peel back the layers to reveal a sexual chemistry that is always on the verge of boiling over. Manzi explains that ‘The relationship between Johnny Utah and Bodhi is full of complexity and passion. They excite each other, they infuriate each other, and they respect each other. But most of all… they love each other.’ This chemistry drives the entire plot of the movie to its conclusion.

Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves), the hotshot rookie FBI agent is sent undercover to investigate a gang of bank robbers, known as the Ex-Presidents, whom the bureau believe might be surfers. When Utah befriends the cool and enigmatic Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) he finds his spiritual partner, a free and easy soul who compliments Utah’s more conservative drive. It’s Utah who sees Bodhi first and stops in his tracks as he watches him glide and strut across the waves. The film eases into slow motion. Are we lead to believe that time has also slowed for Utah as well? They become friends, and Bodhi allows Utah into his circle, he even gives permission for Utah to hook-up with an old girlfriend.

When it’s later discovered Bodhi is leader of the Ex-Presidents, Utah is torn between his duty as a law officer and his desires that have been awakened by Bodhi. In the mid-point of the film, Bodhi makes Utah chase him. Even though he has Bodhi in his sights, Utah can’t bring himself to shoot him, and instead, as Manzi puts is, ejaculates “his rounds into the air in frustration. His sexual desire has reached a tipping point, and his repressed frustration is released through firing his weapon.” During the final moments of the film, as Bodhi is about to jump from an airplane and finally escape, he screams at Utah “I know you want me Johnny. You want be so bad it’s like acid in your mouth.” And he does, Utah wants Bodhi so bad that he jumps out of the plane after him, with no parachute.

The more obvious this unspoken desire becomes the more it bubbles to the surface of the film itself. Both Reeves and Swayze had entered into their physical peak in terms of looks, bone structure and chiseled pecks. This wasn’t the hideous mutated form of Stallone or Schwarzenegger, which was popular among male audiences of the 1980s. Reeves and Swayze’s were both thin, muscular for sure, but soft and hairless, their faces almost feminine. Schwarzenegger might have referred to them as “girly men”. It’s not just Reeves and Swayze, Point Break offers a phantasmagoria of male Adonis bodies that are just as toned and tanned. As the slow motion surfer porn fills the frame these bodies barely ripple, it’s as if they are all made of stone. Thus, the scenes in which Reeves and Swayze stand shirtless and wet in close proximity become revealing of a suppressed sexual longing for one another.”

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11. Lucas Pistilli (film journalist; dirty boy since May 2017)

His favourite dirty LGBT movie is Priscilla Queen of the Desert (Stephan Elliott, 1994):

“Priscilla is the type of film that seems to please older and younger generations. It’s got Terrence Stamp in drag and, if that’s not enough reason for you to watch it, it’s got Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce in the same fashion. It introduced CeCe Penninston’s Finally to a lot of people during one of the best lip-sync performances ever filmed.

It put three very different people in the LGBT spectrum in an adventure through the Australian landscape in which they feel hurt and joy, as in life. Priscilla Queen of the Desert is the rare film dealing with these subject that allows its characters the will to be happy. Finally, indeed”

12. Paul Risker (film critic and editor; dirty boy since March 2016)

His favourite dirty LGBT film is Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti, 1971):

“The experience of Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice has remained with me. From the self-sufficient image to the intertwined voyeuristic gaze of Dirk Bogarde and Visconti’s camera, the film is a beguiling example of sensory filmmaking. And any film that introduces one to the symphonic genius of Gustav Mahler should be remembered with emotional affection.”

13. Petra von Kant (filmmaker, critic and performance artist; dirty girl since March 2016)

Her favourite dirty LGBT movie is The Misandrists (Bruce LaBruce, 2017):

“As a trans woman it’s very refreshing to see another trans woman on the silver screen, particularly if she’s in a large group of cis women without being singled out. Nevermind that this was directed by a cis and pendulous human being. The transcendent sensitivity is there, with plenty of wit and humour. Plus a splash or blood, a dash of sex and a squeeze of violence. This is visceral cinema.”

Sodom

Posted on by victorfraga

Will is an English guy handcuffed to a lamppost at the end of his stag-do in Berlin. Waiting for his friends to come back, he meets Michael (Jo Weil) who helps to set him. The two go to Michael’s apartment where he tries to unlock his handcuffs. Their attraction is so intense that they end up having sex. Will (Pip Brignall) can’t stand the idea of having feelings for a man and in a moment of shame and confusion he leaves Michael’s flat, only to return a few minutes later.

What follows is an intimate encounter between two souls. They chat, they make love and they try to achieve mutual self-discovery. The story goes on in only one setting: the confines of Michael’s apartment. The movie does not set out to tell a multilayered and convoluted story. Instead it’s the straight-forward portrait of two men with their pasts, their feelings, their fears and their hopes.

The dialogues drive the story and give us an overview of the lives of the two males: Will is about to get married with a girl and she doesn’t know that he is attracted to guys, while Michael has broken up with his long-time partner. There is a perfect imbalance between these two figures, one is free of constraints and labels, the other is repressed and can’t accept his nature. Their confrontation explores their differences, but also all the possibilities they both are missing. Could they start a life together?

The acting is excellent, with Brignall and Weil capturing your attention with their hypnotic looks and tender conversation. They have an incredible chemistry. And the direction is outstanding. The first-time filmmaker Wilshin has a delicate and discreet approach in examining LGBTQ issues as coming-out, masculinity and also repression, continuing the dialogue established in films such as as The Weekend (Andrew Haigh, 2011) and Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo (Olivier Ducastell, Jacques Martineau, 2016). The main weakness of the movie that it doesn’t add anything new to the conversation, and it’s not shining with originality.

All in all, Sodom is an enjoyable 90-minutes love-story and it is an outstanding debut feature for Mark Wilshin. You will fall in love with Will and Michael and you will be easily trapped in their fascinating intimacy. Also, this is not a predictable movie, and the bittersweet ending wraps up the story magnificently.

Sodom is showing at part of the East End Film Festival starting on June 2nd – just click here for more information about the event, and book your tickets now!

Tomcat (Kater)

Posted on by victorfraga

Would you have sex with a murderer? What about a cat murderer? The strong and stable relationship of French-horn player Stefan (Lukas Turtur) and orchestra manager Andreas (Philipp Hochmair) suffer a heavy blow after the former willfully and yet unexplainably kills their beloved feline. Stefan begins to experience fits, and Andreas simply isn’t able to be intimate and have sex with his partner anymore.

Moses the cat (in an outstanding performance by Toni, who should be nominated to a ‘Paw-scar’) is an extremely loving and charismatic creature, and he adds the finishing touch to a relationship and lifestyle as close as possible to perfection. Stefan and Andreas are both extremely good-looking, with a very satisfying sex life, good jobs, a very large and comfortable house, great friends, and peace seems to prevail everywhere. They walk around naked at home and most of the time, and they have a green and leafy garden. They look like some modern and bourgeois version of Adam and Eve (or Adam and Steve, for that matter), with a cat replacing the snake. There’s even a tree symbolic of sin and punishment, and where one of the film’s most significant events takes place.

The two lovebirds share their intimacy with Moses, who also becomes some sort of partner. He witnesses everything, but he’s never intrusive. Is it immoral to allow an animal to watch you have sex? Of course it’s not: animals don’t share Christians values of sin and morality. In facts, cats are elegant, nimble and attractive animals. So it’s entirely acceptable and normal that they witness our intimate moments, if they wish to do so. So I don’t think Stefan killed Moses because he was jealous of put off by his presence. Moses was never a killjoy, or a libido kill. Stefan never verbalises his motive, probably because he doesn’t know it himself.

After Moses is killed everything changes. The perfectly happy lifestyle quickly descends into hell. Guilt and mourning turn sex into a burdensome and undesired task. Resentment and mistrust hover above their gorgeous dwelling. Stefan’s and Andrea’s nudity is no longer sexy and empowering. Instead now they look vulnerable and frail. It’s almost as if they were having a hangover from an extended and heady honeymoon (not coincidentally, the film title in German “Kater” means both “tomcat” and “hangover”).

This is not the first Germanic film to expose the impact of a willful feline murder on a relationship. Rainer Werner Fassbinder has a very sadistic Helmut killing his lover’s in the 1974 classic Martha. The difference is that Helmut never regretted his actions, and Fassbinder opted not to show the actual murder scene. But the impact was equally devastating.

The major problem with this Austrian film is that it is a little too long, at almost two hours. The catty fights get a little petty towards the end. Those who’ve never had an animal may find it a little difficult to relate to such unrelenting drama

Kater won the Teddy Prize for LGBT cinema at the 66th Berlin Film Festival last year. It showed in UK cinemas in May and is showing at the Fringe! Queer Film Fest in November.

Chubby Funny

Posted on by victorfraga

The street where I live in North London is quite ordinary and nondescript and except for the odd Japanese tourist taking pictures outside the building where Karl Marx lived and died in the 19th century. So it caught me by surprise to see it on Chubby Funny. In fact, the lead character lives just a few yards down from my doorstep. I could see the surrounding buildings, the children’s playground, a nice view from the top of a neighbouring block and – tah dah! – for a short moment I could even see my own flat! I was almost hoping I would see myself walking down the street.

This fact is not irrelevant, particularly because Chubby Funny is a very local and personal movie. Cinema is where the personal and the universal crossover, where reality and imagination meet, where past and future concur. Seeing your own street and dwelling on the silver screen adds an entire new dimension to a film; it literally transports you home. So you must excuse me for starting this review by sharing these thoughts and feelings.

Chubby Funny is a highly autobiographical movie about a vaguely chubby gay (or maybe bisexual?) actor seeking his next role, and trying to reconcile his career ambitions with his personal life. Oscar (played by the film helmer Harry Michell) looks a little bit like a grown-up cherub, with English rose cheeks and curly hair. He has landed a gig playing a squirrel for a commercial, but he’s far from achieving his professional ambitions, and his financial woes often prevail. He’s got a (boy)friend who’s in the same industry, facing similar challenges, and this quickly takes a toll on their relationship (it’s not entirely clear how sexual their relation is). The movie feels so personal that you’d guess the lead and the director were the same person even if you didn’t know it (I certainly did).

There are plenty of jokes about body fascism in the film industry as well as in the gay scene. There’s also commentary on immigrants and our prejudices towards them. This is a film with its heart at the right place. And the performances are satisfactory enough.

This British independent movie is very lighthearted and unpretentious, but also non-audacious. The film starts out with a romcom feel, not dissimilar to Bridget Jones (minus the giant underpants, plus a shriveled up penis), but it then gradually veers into a career drama territory. It attempts to achieve emotional complexity and profundity, but it sometimes slips into the banal and trivial. The ending of the film is also a little abrupt, and it feels like some of the plots could be explored in a little more depth. The inevitable realisation of personal fallibility is a mostly predictable outcome. Overall, not bad for a first-time director, but we do hope Harry will get dirtier in his next films!

The movie also features Alice Lowe, best known for her recent performance and direction of Prevenge (2016).

Chubby Funny premiered at the LOCO London Comedy Film Festival (click here for more information about the event) in May. It’s out in selected cinemas across the UK on June 30th.

Handsome Devil

Posted on by victorfraga

Ireland is a fast-changing nation. The profoundly Catholic country was the first one in the world to legalise gay marriage by the means of popular vote, despite fierce opposition from the Church. The society has suddenly come out of the closet, and cinema is keeping the closet doors open so that no one is left inside.

But gay marriage isn’t the only issue that matters to LGBT people. Handsome Devil touches is a very touching and moving gay drama, urgent in its simplicity, delving with two woes that remain pandemic: gay bullying in schools and LGBT representation in sports – the latter is often described as the last and most resilient stronghold of homophobia. The movie succeeds to expose both problems and the destructive consequences for the afflicted with a very gentle and effective approach.

Puny and nerdish Ned (Fionn O’Shea) and handsome sportsman Conor are forced to share a bedroom at their boarding school. Conor is strangely lonely and introspective, despite his looks and the popularity that the sports bestow upon him. He slowly begins to mingle with Ned, with whom the shares a taste for music. Their bond is then tested by the school authorities, with only the teacher Dan Sherry (Andrew Scott) supporting their friendship and musical affinity. Ned, Conor and Sherry are accomplices of each other’s sexuality.

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Partly narrated by the unabashed and unrepentant Ned, as if he was recollecting a dark chapter of his life and of his country’s history, Handsome Devil contrasts the grotesque masculinity often associated with rugby against the alleged artistic sensitivity of homosexuals. Of course the equations “straight = sports” and “gay = arts” are not accurate. Instead they have been pushed upon us in attempt balkanise and stigmatise people with diverse sexualities. Thankfully Ireland is now moulting its old layers of homophobia, and these equations are set to fall off with so many other prejudices.

The climax of the film towards the end is very powerful, and it’s guaranteed to bring you tears. It’s a turning point in the film, just like the gay marriage referendum in the country. In fact, this sequence is akin to the referendum in more than one way: it forces the film characters to cast a vote, just like Irish citizens did in 2015. Top it all up with Rufus Wainwright’s heartfelt wailing. This is the perfect gay tearjerker, without ever being corny and vulgar. This is a noble film about strong and noble characters.

Little note: this is not a film about sex, instead it’s a movie focused entirely on sexuality and lifestyle choices attached. There are no picante sequences, which may come as a disappointment to those who would like to have their libido tickled.

Handsome Devil is out in selected cinemas across the UK and Ireland on Friday April 28th (2017). on Disney + UK on Friday, July 29th. Also available on other platforms.

Waiting for B

Posted on by victorfraga

Socio-economic Apartheid is alive and kicking in Brazil: rich kids pay $700 in order to be close to Beyoncé as she performs at Morumbi Stadium in São Paulo, while poor kids have to queue for up to two months for a similar position. But the waiting game is not without disadvantages: the passionate fans enjoy a vibrant atmosphere throughout, as they exchange friendly banter, insights into their lives and have a lot of fun in the provisional camp erected under the sweltering sun of a heavily-polluted concrete jungle. What what harm could a few days of toxic car emissions do when you are about to fulfill the biggest dream of your life?

These young people are “camping” in both senses of the word: they sleep in makeshift tends for weeks, and they also camp it up in very good, swingy and extravagant Brazilian style. Virtually all the males queuing up are either gay or bisexual, a phenomenon for which they are unable to pinpoint the reason. But there’s something else they can explain with confidence: Beyoncé has, in one way or the other, liberated each one of them and changed their lives for the best.

The film title has a twist that only Brazilian Portuguese speakers will grasp. “B” (pronounced “bee”) is how gay men address each other in Brazil, being short for “biba” or “bicha” (both meaning “queer”).

This is not the only film at BFI Flare this year dealing with Brazilian Camp: Body Electric by Marcelo Caetano portrays young gay people camping it up. Click here in order to read our exclusive review of the film or here in order to find out why we write Camp with capital C.

waitingforb2
Beyoncé are always ready to camp it up and confront homophobia

Beyoncé is a landmark for these young people. She’s more than a pop star: this is a personality cult. They want to incorporate her dancing, her singing and her song lyrics into their lives. The American dancer and singer is a role model for both Black and LGBT people. She has given many fans the motivation to learn English, or provided them with inspiration to go to university. To others, she has given the strength to confront a prejudiced family and society. Never underestimate the power of music, even if it’s in a foreign language.

During the unusual two-month stint, the fans reflect on a number of peculiar paradoxes, such as the prejudice that gay and Black people have to face in Brazil. They note that Black people are often racist against Black, and that gays often discriminate each other (the most effeminate ones tend to suffer the most). A fan notes that Beyoncé’s skin is always pale and her hair is straightened, and concludes “she wants to be white”. There are also reflections on family, classism, lack of social mobility and the so many woes affecting these people – who are almost entirely dark-skinned and living in the suburbs.

Waiting for B showed as part of the BFI Flare London LGBT Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. The film won the Best Film prize at the Mix Brasil, the largest LGBT film festival in Latin America, and also the Best Documentary award at the Lisbon Queer Film Festival. it shows at Fringe! on June 30th (2019) – just click here for more information.

I Love You Both

Posted on by victorfraga

Labels are extremely double-edged. On one hand, they can provide much needed representation for marginalised minorities, groups and communiites, such as Blacks, LGBT or a specific nationality abroad. On the other hand, it can generate an expectation, and easily disappoint when certain criteria are not met. Such is the case with I Love you Both, which is being marketed as an LGBT film. The title itself – accompanied by the picture of two siblings – suggests that there is an ingenious homosexual romance. In reality, the LGBT topic is very secondary.

I Love you Both tells the story of Donnie (played by the director Doug Archibald himself) and his twin sister Krystal (played by his sibling Kristin Archibald, who is his twin in real life), who are smitten with the same man, the good-looking and bisexual Andy (Lucas Neff). But the focus of the film is not the romance, and there are no picante and risqué moments. Instead, the relationship between the two doting twins is the central pillar about the movie. This is a movie about fraternal love, which will come as a disappointment to LGBT fans hoping for sassy gay humour, antics, sex and aesthetics. But this does not make I Love You Both a bad movie. Quite the opposite: this a very warm, convincing and funny movie.

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Krystal and the charming Andy are pictured here

The romcom genre has become very hackneyed and trite, and finding a new and effective angle can be very difficult. Yet the first-time director comes up with a refreshing twist: twins of different sexes in love with the same person. He uses the well-established formulas for the genre : a touch of screwball, silly jokes, flat characters, fun indie or pop music, mellow dialogues and subtle of twists of fate. The film is never cheap and vulgar, and it will keep you hooked and smiling throughout.

You will enter Donnie and Krystal’s private space, and work out how they maintain their warmth and respect towards each other at the face of adversity. Their caring and non-intrusive parents are present throughout, providing the occasional obtuse attempt at parental guidance. But it’s the director’s gentle hand at portraying every day hurdles that the twins have to overcome that makes this movie special. Don’t expect high-octane action, just settle in for the balmy and refreshing.

Ultimately, I Love You Both is a movie about fraternal love, and a touching tribute that the director pays to his very own sister. In fact, the film started off under the title Quarter-Life Crisis during its crowdfunding campaign, revealing indeed that a battle of sexes or sexualities was never intended to be the the centrepiece of the story.

I Love You Both is showing as part of the BFI Flare LGBT Film Festival – click here for more information about the event. The film has commercial potential, and DMovies hazards a guess that it could reach an independent cinema near you later in the year. Just follow us on Twitter or Facebook and we will keep you update. You can watch the film teaser below, where the director explains that this is a film about the relationship between two “co-dependent twins”:

Call me by Your Name

Posted on by mjbstaging

Luca Guadagnino (A Bigger Splash, 2016) has just twisted Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti, 1971) and he has the right to do so. Times have changed. A queer movie can be treated as a universal love story. Call Me by Your Name was praised by public and the critics at 2017 Sundance Film Festival.

In the summer of 1983 in northern Italy, Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet), a 17-year-old boy, is about to receive a guest in his aristocratic house. He is lending his bed to Oliver (Armie Hammer), a 24-year-old American scholar who has some work to do with Elio’s father (Michael Stuhlbarg), a professor specialising in Greco-Roman culture. Elio and Oliver will share the same toilet as well as a desire for each other.

Just like in Visconti’s masterpiece, the story begins when a foreigner comes to the Italian territory. In Call me By Your Name, though, it is the young guy who invests in the more mature gay professor. Elio is a talented musician who hasn’t been yet tortured by fame and perfection – as Dirk Bogart, a music composer, has in the earlier movie. Elio follows Oliver not throughout the Venetian canals, but in the spiral and labyrinthic building he lives in. Elio is sick: his nose bleeds. Maybe there is death on its way, too.

The image of Venus, the goddess of love, is present in both films. In Visconti’s film, the young and androgynous teenager Tadzio, is portrayed as a statue in the sunset by the sea; in Guadagnino’s feature the statue of Venus emerges from the deep waters. Another Venus appears on the slides Oliver is analysing for an academic paper.

The Venus stands not just for love, but for beauty and lust. Elio’s hormones are at their peak. When he cannot have Oliver, he goes for his girlfriend Marzia (Esther Garrel). Love and lust are the motivations for our main characters. They both forget about their Apollonian personalities as a musician and a scholar and instead reveal their Dionysian persona. The outcome is a stunningly sensual relationship.

Guadagnino’s films have often been criticised in his country. Sometimes critics say they are not Italian enough, for Guadagnino has often worked with English-speaking actors. His first film (The Protagonists, 1999) had Tilda Swinton as the lead. Some believe that he portrays Italians in a sterotypical way, which is gesticulating a lot and quarrelling for trivial reasons. Here Guadagnino presents an atypical patriarch, which embraces the homosexuality of a son.

Call Me by Your Name brought to Sundance a delicate and emotional story, to an audience used to search lovers on dating sites. This is when this piece was originally written. It’s out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 27th.

Call Me by Your Name is in our top 10 dirtiest movies of 2017 – click here for more information.

Akron

Posted on by victorfraga

Set in present-day Akron, in the American state of Ohio, this film presents the romance between two university students Benny (Matthew Frias) and Christopher (Edmund Donovan). They meet in a sports field and swiftly become deeply infatuated with each other, and both of their families are very enthusiastic and supportive of their romance. It feels like the perfect romance between two charming, irresistible and loving young men, until a tragedy from the past resurfaces to haunt them.

Christopher’s mother had accidentally run over Benny’s brother with her car in a parking lot roughly 15 years earlier. Christopher was inside the car and Benny also witnessed the event, but they were both very young and their recollection is very vague. On the other hand, Benny’s mother struggles to forgive and forget the horrific day when she lost one of her sons.

Akron is a film about how difficult Americans find to accept death, to forgive and to move on with their private lives. Benny’s mother is a reasonable, kind and loving person, but she is just unable to cope with the fact that her son’s partner is somehow linked to the tragic accident. In the documentary Where to Invade Next (2015), Michael Moore noted while interviewing the father of a victim of Anders Behring Breivik (who conducted a mass shooting in Oslo in 2011) that Americans struggle to forget the past. The American director is bemused that the Norwegian man has come to terms with the death of his son and is not campaigning for death penalty or reparations. Benny’s mother is not seeking money or revenge; she is simply unable to mend her heart and let her son have a relationship with Christopher.

Akron is a film about pain and reconciliation.

A remarkable feature in Akron is that homosexuality is presented as entirely acceptable feature of American society. There is not a scintilla of homophobia or sexual intolerance, not even in passing. While refreshing, this at times comes across as contrived and unnatural. Not because homosexuality is unnatural, but instead because such level of acceptance is hardly credible. Akron is subversive in a reverse way: by presenting an alternative sexuality as a fully integrated and commoditised lifestyle.

While at times a little too melodramatic, the two directors Brian O’Donnell and Sasha King – who are also partners – created a beautiful film with overall good performances and an engaging script. It may feel futile and petit bourgeois to LGBT audiences in other countries facing much more serious problems (such as violence and even death) than a mother’s soul-searching, but Akron still delivers good moments and an examination of possibilities of reconciliation.

Akron was part of the 30th BFI Flare London LGBT Film Festival in 2016, when this piece was originally written. The film has now been made available on BFI Player – just click here for more information.