News

Cph:forum, the financing and co-production arm of documentary festival Cph:dox, has unveiled its lineup of projects, including those by director Tamara Kotevska, Oscar nominated for “Honeyland,” and producers Monica Hellström, Oscar nominated for “Flee,” and Sigrid Dyekjær, Oscar nominated for “The Cave” and an Emmy winner with “The Territory.”

Other projects include those by directors such as Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan (“Nocturnes”), Jennie Livingston (“Paris Is Burning”), Peter Middleton (“Notes on Blindness”), Maximilien Van Aertryck and Axel Danielson, Margreth Olin (“Songs of Earth”), Anabel Rodriguez (“Once Upon a Time in Venezuela”), Mark Cousins (“The Story of Film: An Odyssey”), Robin Petré (“Only on Earth”), and Agnieszka Zwiefka (“Silent Trees”), along with producers such as James Paul Dallas (“Invisible Beauty”) and John Archer (“Bogancloch”).

The event, which runs March 24-27 in Copenhagen, Denmark, will bring together 75 directors and producers representing 26 countries who will take the stage to present 30 new documentary...

“Hearts and Minds,” the 1974 anti-war film that caused a furor at the Academy Awards when it won the Best Documentary Feature Oscar, has been named recipient of the 2025 Legacy Award at the Cinema Eye Honors.

The doc from director and producer Peter Davis and producer Bert Schneider was made in the final years of the Vietnam War, which it presented as an unwinnable and criminal enterprise by the United States.

“Peter Davis’ film debunked the lies surrounding the then-still ongoing Vietnam War,” Cinema Eye founding director Aj Schnack said in a Tuesday statement to TheWrap. “’Hearts and Minds’ stands as one of the greatest films about war in the history of film and reminds us that attacks on unarmed civilians are neither new nor acceptable. We are honored to celebrate this film and to present Peter Davis with our 2025 Legacy Award.”’

In response, Davis added, “The Legacy Award honoring my...

When it comes to the Criterion Closet, preparation is key.

Thank goodness “Megalopolis” star Nathalie Emmanuel knew this going in and came ready and raring to make her selections.

“I had to have a strategy when I came in here, because I know just by the vast collection, I would be immediately overwhelmed and then be indecisive,” said Emmanuel. “So I’ve decided to have some ideas of what I’m looking for.”

For her first pick, Emmanuel chose one of Francis Ford Coppola’s many inspirations for “Megalopolis,” the Powell & Pressburger musical piece “The Red Shoes.” The film follows a young ballet dancer who comes under the tutelage of a tyrannical director, sending her on a psychological whirlwind that makes her forget where she begins and the dance ends.

“I have such fond memories of this film. I have a dance background, ballet background, and the metaphor in the...

“I definitely arrived here with some films that I was like, ‘I want to make sure I grab that’ and ‘I own it and I have it,’ but upon arrival I have been washed in in the blood of Criterion.”

This was actor Jeremy Pope’s reaction upon entering the sacred Criterion Closet and seeing all the stunning cinema that lay before him. Without delay, Pope’s first selection was Carl Franklin’s Los Angeles-set noir, “Devil in a Blue Dress.”

“This film speaks to me because my first real job was this show called ‘Hollywood’ that I shot with Ryan Murphy for Netflix and this film, set in the I think it’s like, late ‘40s/‘50s, felt very identical to the experience that my character Archie was about to go on, so this became like such an inspiration and like a point of reference,” said Pope. “Love the film,...

Late in filmmaker Gregory Nava’s harrowing 1983 immigration drama El Norte, Guatemalan refugee Rosa (Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez) lays ailing in a Los Angeles hospital, ravaged by a fatal case of typhus acquired crawling through the rat-infested sewers underneath the Mexican-American border. Sadly resigned to her own death, she turns to her equally ill-fated brother Enrique (David Villalpando) to ask: “When will we find a home, Enrique? Maybe when we die?”–a blunt, heartbreaking moment among many.

But even setting aside the Guatemalan Civil War whose harsh realities provide El Norte its backdrop so too could Rosa’s mournful question could just as easily be asked in relation to the state of independent film in the Americas by the time of El Norte’s world premiere at the 1983 edition of the Telluride Film Festival.

After spending the bulk of the 1970s drinking and producing a series of increasingly unreleasable masterpieces, indie film pioneer John Cassavetes was,...

The 68 th BFI London Film Festival has announced the full programme line-up, which will be presented in cinemas and online, across the UK.

The Lff will present a vibrant and diverse programme of 253 features, shorts, series and immersive works from 79 countries, featuring 63 languages playing across the 12 days of the festival. This includes 112 works made by female and non-binary filmmakers – 44% of the programme.

World Premieres

From filmmakers and artists include: Steve McQueen’s Blitz which opens the festival, Ben Taylor’s Cunard Gala Joy starring Thomasin McKenzie, James Norton and Bill Nighy, the BFI National Archive and The Film Foundation’s restoration Silent Sherlock, Darren Thornton’s Irish comedy film Four Mothers, spellbinding performance film from Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard The Extraordinary Miss Flower, thriller series A Thousand Blows from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, the latest documentary from Oscar®-winning directing duo Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin Endurance,...

Venus Xtravaganza captured hearts in the seminal 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning. A passionate ballroom dancer with big dreams, her vivacious soul lit up the screen. Tragically, Venus was later murdered at just 23 years old; her case never solved. Over 30 years later, director Kimberly Reed set out to continue Venus’s story.

I’m Your Venus. tells of Reed’s efforts to bring together Venus’s two families—her brothers and the members of the House of Xtravaganza she considered chosen kin. Both groups aim to honor Venus’s memory by reopening the long-cold case. Deeper still, they seek healing from past pains through rediscovering the sister and sistermother many knew too little of in life.

Reed crafts her film from archival footage, weaving the legendary performer afresh into conversations between those who loved her. What emerges offers profound insights across divides of identity and understanding. “She wrestles with what it means to evolve,...

In the midst of their press tour for Zoë Kravitz’s feature directorial debut, “Blink Twice,” starring romantic partner Channing Tatum, the duo took a not-so-brief pit-stop at the Criterion Closet to score a bevy of cinematic treats. Many of their choices outlined their shared eclectic taste and emphasized a relationship largely based around a love for films of all kind.

“We’re so excited to be here, this is like a dream come true,” Kravitz said as she and Tatum began their shopping spree. “I grew up in video stores, so this is also just a nice feeling cause that’s not really a thing anymore, sadly.”

Though the video was shot prior to the death of Gena Rowlands and posted on the day the news broke, there’s a serendipitous homage to the late actor, as well her husband and collaborator John Cassavetes.

“We love Cassavetes,” Kravitz said...

The work of the late Stephen Cummins remains an archive of joy amid the gloom – and it’s screening at a Melbourne retrospective

On 25 January 1992 a group of gay and queer film-makers took to a stage at Sundance film festival to discuss a watershed moment for LGBTQ representation on screen. On the panel were a young Todd Haynes and the veteran British director Derek Jarman, as well as the 18-year-old prodigy Sadie Benning (who would go on to co-found the riot grrrl act Le Tigre). Among this august company were two Sydney film-makers: Stephen Cummins, then 31, and a 29-year-old Simon Hunt, who would later become a satirical sensation through his alter ego Pauline Pantsdown.

The Australian duo were at Sundance to show their homoerotic experimental short film Resonance and the mood was electric: the previous year, Haynes’ debut feature Poison and Jennie Livingston’s now-canonical documentary Paris Is Burning had...

Exclusive: The Gotham on Wednesday unveiled the programming you can expect from this year’s edition of Gotham Week, taking place in Brooklyn and Manhattan from September 30 – October 4.

Gotham Week will feature the third-annual Gotham Week Expo and a reimagined Project Market, which will showcase narrative and documentary features, as well as additional projects through the Global Producers Hub. Additionally, previously announced Series Creators to Watch and Branded Storytellers to Watch will be highlighted, with assorted filmmaker conversations and screenings to be presented.

The Gotham’s Project Market is described as a meetings-driven forum connecting new fiction and documentary projects in development with key industry executives interested in identifying projects for development, financing, or distribution. The market will feature sections including Features in Development, Shorts to Features, Spotlight on Documentaries, and Global Producers Hub, each highlighting a wide range of established and rising voices in film and media.

This year,...

Near the end of Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning, Venus Xtravaganza, an Italian Puerto Rican ballroom dancer who was one of the landmark queer doc’s subjects, describes a harrowing near-death experience. While Venus was hustling as a sex worker, a client realized she was a trans woman and reacted violently. “You’re a freak,” Venus recalls the man saying to her, “I should kill you.” Rattled by the threat, Venus grabbed her bag and jumped out of the window. The story is particularly haunting because a few scenes later, Venus’ house mother, Angie, reveals that the young ballroom performer was found strangled to death in a Manhattan hotel. “She was like my right hand,” Angie says. “I miss her.”

The depth of Venus’ loss is acutely felt in Kimberly Reed’s affecting documentary I’m Your Venus. The film, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, is one of...

Anyone who watches Paris Is Burning, Jennie Livingston’s iconic 1990 documentary about the New York City ballroom scene, will immediately fall in love with Venus Xtravaganza, the 23-year-old trans woman and aspiring model who is prominently featured in the film. In Paris Is Burning, the gorgeous, optimistic, fragile Venus describes her dreams of a better life from her grandmother’s home in Jersey City, only for the film to later reveal that she had been found strangled under a bed in a motel room at the age of 23. Her murder remains unsolved to this day.

Kanopy – the no-fee, ad-free film and TV show streaming service that’s available to some 45 million people in the United States with a library card and through more than 85% of large American colleges and universities – is featuring movies selected by GLAAD in celebration of Pride Month in June. The GLAAD Pride Month Picks include films that feature “fair, accurate and inclusive LGBTQ+ representation” as part of the service’s full Pride Month collection of 107 movies and documentaries.

GLAAD is the world’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer media advocacy organization. Its Pride Month choices (including the 2023 Oscar Best Picture winner “Everything Everywhere All at Once”) are below:

“The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” (1994) “The Aggressives: The World of Lesbian Subculture” (2005) “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” (2022) “Bodies Bodies Bodies” (2022) “The Blue Caftan” (2022) “But I’m a Cheerleader” (1999) “Call Her Ganda” (2018) “Changing the Game” (2019) “Everything Everywhere All at Once...

Quick Links American Movie Succeeds as a World-Class Comedy The Existential Malaise of a Midwestern Working-Class Existence Borchardt Is a Cult Hero Who Embodies the Essence of the American Dream

Twenty-five years ago, Chris Smith directed the documentary American Movie, which, over the years, has turned the film's subject, Wisconsin-based auteur Mark Borchardt, into a cult hero. While most documentaries focus on a niche subject matter, American Movie has a near-universal appeal that possesses the ability to entertain almost anyone. American Movie succeeds as a laugh-out-loud hysterical comedy that finds immense humor in both its eccentric cast of characters and the absurdist struggles of trying to produce a low-budget independent film. The movie also offers audiences a somber portrait of Midwestern working-class existential malaise and the desire to break free from this oppressive way of life by pursuing the American Dream. Lastly, American Movie is a beautiful tribute to aspiring...

It was on a backstreet in Tel Aviv while filming her last film, M — which would go on to win a César Award for best documentary — that the French documentarian Yolande Zauberman found the subject for her latest, La Belle de Gaza (The Beauty of Gaza).

Zauberman was filming three young Arab trans women, one who told her filmmaking partner in Arabic that she walked from Gaza to Tel Aviv. “I thought it was such a nearly impossible path,” recalls Zauberman. “First, to be a man, becoming a woman, coming from Gaza to Tel Aviv, and being a Muslim in Tel Aviv. I really wanted to find this woman and to see how she was seeing the world.” After losing contact with the woman, Zauberman began searching for her. That journey would become the impetus for — and title of — her latest doc, La Belle de Gaza.

The finished film, which...

Nikki is a multi-talented individual, with a unique storyline on 90 Day Fiancé, trying to bring her partner to America on a K-1 visa for the second time. She has a fascinating alter ego called Nikki Exotika, and she started her career as a performer and singer, inspired by idols like Madonna and Lady Gaga. Nikki is not just a reality TV star, but she is also a hairstylist, makeup artist, and plastic surgery consultant, with a massive following on Instagram and various platforms where she engages with her fans.

90 Day Fiancé star Nicole “Nikki” Sanders is a jill of all trades. Nikki currently stars in season 10 of the reality TV show with her partner Igor, Aka Justin, Shutencov. Nikki, from Hoboken, New Jersey, has a unique storyline where she is trying to get Justin to America on a K-1 visa for the second time. The 47-year-old Nikki had met...

Mika Gustafson’s social drama Paris Is Burning has won the top prize for best film at the Guldbagge Awards, Sweden’s top film honors.

The feature, which premiered in Venice’s Horizons section this year, follows three sisters who left to their own devices by their absent mother, live a life of anarchic freedom. But when social services come calling, the oldest has to find someone to impersonate their mum to avoid being shipped off to foster care. It was picked as the best Swedish film of the past year at the Guldbagge Awards ceremony in Stockholm on Monday night. Paris is Burning also scooped the Guldbagge for best set design for Catharina Nyqvist Ehrnrooth.

But the night’s big winner was Axel Petersén’s Shame on Dry Land. The neo-noir set in the world of online gamblers picked up 7 Guldbagge awards, including for best director and best actor for lead Joel Spira,...

January is one of the biggest months of the year for independent film, with hundreds of film critics descending upon the Sundance Film Festival to discover the works of up-and-coming directors. But for those of us who can’t make the trek to Park City, Utah, there are plenty of independent movies to enjoy from the comfort of our homes.

This month, there’s a particularly big selection of independent classics to choose from on streaming, particularly if you’re subscribed to the Criterion Channel. In celebration of the approaching festival, Criterion is hosting a massive selection of past Sundance favorites, including the 1968 experimental documentary “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One.” Other favorites in the selection include “Blood Simple,” “Stranger Than Paradise,” “The Times of Harvey Milk,” “Desert Hearts,” “Working Girls,” “Paris Is Burning,” “Mississippi Masala,” “Slacker,” “Hoop Dreams,” and “The Doom Generation.” Other major indie favorites on the streamer this January include...

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2023, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

In 2023, I wanted to laugh. Perhaps more than I realized, because when I finally calculated my top-rated films that came out this year, a great portion of my selections turned out to be either straight-up comedies or gripping comedy-dramas. 2023 was the year I embraced funny and moving movie coming-of-age stories probably more than any other, but to me, that genre isn’t only limited to what happens when 11-year-old girls experience their period for the first time or when Elvis Presley decides to take a child bride. For example, Paul Giamatti’s acidic classics teacher experiences something like a middle-aged puberty when he’s forced to care for an abandoned prep school kid during Christmas break in The Holdovers. In Beau is Afraid, we watch a stunted...

The Swedish Film Institute on Wednesday announced the nominations for the Guldbagge (Golden Bug) awards, Sweden’s top film prize, with politics taking center stage among the feature contenders.

Axel Petersén’s Shame on Dry Land, a neo-noir set in the world of online gamblers who fled Sweden for refuge in Malta, lead the pack with 9 Guldbagge nominations. But it was snubbed in the best film category. Per Fly’s cold war thriller Hammarskjöld, starring Mikael Persbrandt as the titular Swedish diplomat, and former Un Secretary-General, who died in a mysterious plane crash, received seven nominations, including best film, tying with Opponent, Milad Alami’s drama about a family who flee Iran for Northern Sweden.

Alongside Hammarskjöld and Opponent, best film nominees include Mika Gustafson’s social drama Paris Is Burning, the relationship drama 100 Seasons from director Giovanni Bucchieri, and The Gullspång Miracle, a documentary from director Maria Fredriksson about...

Palm Springs International Film Festival programmers have set this year’s lineup.

The desert festival, which runs Jan. 4 to 15, will open with the U.S. premiere of Thea Sharrock’s Wicked Little Letters on Jan. 5. Based on a 1920s English scandal, the film follows neighbors Edith Swan and Rose Gooding in the seaside town of Littlehampton. One day, a series of obscene letters begin to target Edith and others as suspicions fall on Rose. As the situation escalates, Rose risks losing her freedom and custody of her daughter. Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Anjana Vasan, Malachi Kirby, Eileen Atkins and Timothy Spall star in the film.

Though the opening screening happens on Jan. 5, the festival really kicks off the night before with the Film Awards, a starry ceremony that will shine a spotlight on Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Poor Things star Emma Stone, Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy,...

"The Library Is Open": This iconic catchphrase signals the start of the reading challenge, allowing the queens to show off their shady insults. "Sashay Away": The two words no drag queen wants to hear, this catchphrase signals elimination and has become a widely recognized and quoted phrase. "If You Can't Love Yourself, How In The Hell Are You Going to Love Somebody Else?": RuPaul's positive message at the end of each episode encourages self-love and acceptance, resonating with fans and contestants alike.

RuPaul's Drag Race is one of the most quotable reality TV shows ever, and fans have sorted their favorite quotes on Ranker. RuPaul's Drag Race All-Stars season 8 premiered with a slate of celebrity guest judges in May 2023, proving how enduring the show's popularity continues to be. With so many quotable moments, which catchphrases are best?

RuPaul's Drag Race is a show that pits drag queens...

A well-told story ends when the credits roll, but not so documentaries. There, in most cases, the lives of the people depicted on-screen continue on, transformed by the fact of being filmed — and even more by whatever attention the project ignites in the culture at large. That’s why, in the hundreds of post-screening Q&As I’ve seen for docs over the years, the same questions come up virtually without fail: What’s happened since? How are the movie’s subjects doing now?

In “Subject,” co-directors Jennifer Tiexiera and Camilla Hall catch up with the people at the center of several major documentaries — from “Hoop Dreams” and “The Wolfpack” to “Capturing the Friedmans” and “The Staircase” — to see how their involvement in such projects changed their lives. That may be the hook that lures in audiences, though the film is far more than just a years-later epilogue to those high-profile docs.

NewFest has announced its opening night, closing night and New York Centerpiece selections for its 35th anniversary edition.

The New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Film Festival will open with the Colman Domingo-led biopic Rustin, directed by DGA award and five-time Tony winner George C. Wolfe, and close with Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers, starring Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Claire Foy and Jamie Bell.

The festival’s executive director David Hatkoff and director of programming Nick McCarthy have also announced that the world premiere of the Billy Porter-narrated doc Queen of New York, from Emmy award-nominated director Emma Fidel, will serve as this year’s New York Centerpiece screening.

The 2023 festival will run from Oct. 12-22, with virtual encores through Oct. 24 on NewFest’s on-demand platform. This year’s lineup will also return to Manhattan and Brooklyn for in-person premieres at Manhattan’s Sva Theatre and The LGBT Community Center,...

Queer movies and TV shows are all well and good, but arguably even more important is the existence of great LGBTQ documentaries. Fiction can help provide great representation and tell moving queer stories, but documentary does something else entirely: it preserves entire communities’ stories as snapshots in humanity’s kaleidoscopic history.

Documentary filmmaking has (almost) always been a relative safe haven for LGBTQ cinema, particularly smaller, experimental docs created by independent filmmakers. For years, mainstream films largely sanitized and ignored the LGBTQ community — but the documentary format allowed queer people to capture the truths of their lives that went otherwise undepicted. Great LGBTQ documentaries stretch back as far as 1967, with “Portrait of Jason”: a fascinating profile of a gay nightclub performer. Other early greats provided the first mainstream depictions of vibrant gay subcultures, like 1991 ballroom doc “Paris Is Burning” or 1967’s drag film “The Queen.” And still others provided...

Once a Grammy-nominated producer, D Smith was shunned by the music business when she came out as trans. A disastrous stint on reality TV followed – and now she has reinvented herself as a film-maker

Kokomo City, the debut feature by musician-turned-film-maker D Smith, sits in a clear lineage of classic documentaries about the LGBTQ+ community. Consisting of unadorned, verite-style interviews with four Black trans sex workers in Atlanta and New York – as well as a handful of trans-attracted men – it takes its cues from vivid, straight-talking films such as Paris Is Burning and Word Is Out.

But Smith also drew influence from a film rarely mentioned in the same breath as staples of the queer canon: Todd Phillips’s pulpy, controversial 2019 superhero flick Joker. “Not to compare trans women to the Joker, but when I saw that film, it was mind-blowing – it stripped him down, all of the makeup and stuff,...

Many of the most important queer films in cinema history share a birthplace: the Sundance Film Festival. Organized by the Sundance Institute, the legendary annual fest in Park City, Utah, has boasted international and U.S. premiere titles as varied as the groundbreaking New York ballroom documentary Paris Is Burning in 1991, Donna Deitch’s 1985 lesbian road drama Desert Hearts or even recent masterworks like Luca Guadagnino’s 2017 adaptation of Call Me by Your Name.

The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Kim Yutani, director of programming at Sundance, about some of the most important Lgbtqia+ films to debut there.

“Seeing the films that Sundance has programmed over the years, especially around the early 1990s with the New Queer Wave, that was what attracted me to Sundance,” says Yutani, who’s been working with the festival for 17 years, and has also worked in various positions within the film industry, like as Gregg Araki...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Metrograph

Lars von Trier’s The Idiots begins playing in a new 4K restoration.

Film Forum

A celebration of Ozu’s 120th birthday brings a massive series; a retrospective on New York movies continues with Carpenter, Friedkin, Pakula, and more; I Was Born, But… plays on 35mm this Sunday.

Film at Lincoln Center

A retrospective of the great, underseen Marco Ferreri continues with a series of imported 35mm prints; Love & Basketball plays for free Friday night at Governors Island.

Roxy Cinema

35mm prints of In the Cut and The Rocky Horror Picture Show screen; Party Girl and Paris Is Burning also play.

Museum of the Moving Image

Raiders of the Lost Ark and Beat Street play on 35mm in a summer movie series; a print of Mulholland Dr. plays in a queer cinema series.

IFC Center

The David Lynch retrospective...

Seven years ago this month, in the aftermath of the attack on Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, one call to action rose above the din: “Say their names.” New Yorkers chanted it steps from the Stonewall Inn. The mother of a child gunned down at Sandy Hook penned it in an open letter. The Orlando Sentinel printed the names. Anderson Cooper recited them. A gunman, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, murdered 49 people and wounded 53 others in the wee hours of that awful Sunday, massacring LGBTQ people of color and their allies in the middle of Pride Month, and the commemoration of the dead demanded knowing who they were. “These,” as MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell urged his viewers, “are the names to remember.”

The titles on our list of the best LGBTQ movies of all time are a globe-spanning, multigenerational testament to our existence in a world where our erasure is no abstraction. From...

It's Pride Month! While it's ideally a month for political action, hearkening back to the Stonewall riots from whence it emerged, it's probably most commonly associated with parades, block parties, and movies (along with countless people reminding you that they're allies). LGBTQ+ cinema has existed for a century, and beginning in the late 2000s, has experienced somewhat of a golden age.

Recently, though, there has been a reactionary, theocratic attack against any LGBTQ+ progress made in recent decades. It's hard to say if queer cinema can have much of an impact against this pendulum-like pushback, but at the very least, it should provide solace to the many people who feel under attack by ideologues.

Fortunately, there are a handful of very exciting films throughout June and beyond which will celebrate LGBTQ+ icons, explore queer experiences, and tell deeply human stories. Read on to learn more about some of the exciting...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

BlackBerry (Matt Johnson)

In BlackBerry, the rise of a blue-chip tech company sets the stage for the dissolution of a longstanding friendship. Sound familiar? Just wait ‘til you hear the score. Directed by Matt Johnson, it tells the true story of Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin, software engineers who founded the company Rim in the mid-80s and later invented a cellphone that could handle email. The film begins on the day when they meet Jim Basillie (Glenn Howerton), a Rottweiler who, alongside Lazaridis’ genius, turned Rim’s invention (only later christened BlackBerry) into the world’s most ubiquitous mobile device––at least for a time. – Rory O. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

The Hole in the Fence (Joaquín del Paso...

Our latest roundup of new books related to the world of cinema is full of indelible imagery––the pale face of Lost Highway’s Mystery Man, John Ford’s craggy visage, and, of course, the Neverland sets from Hook.

Lost Highway: The Fist of Love by Scott Ryan (Tucker DS Press)

Last year, Scott Ryan covered David Lynch’s Twin Peaks prequel in Fire Walk With Me: Your Laura Disappeared. (We featured it here.) In 2023, Ryan studies what he calls “the lowest-grossing, most forgotten film of [Lynch’s] career.” Ryan’s Lost Highway: The Fist of Love is every bit as enthralling and insightful as Your Laura Disappeared. The author zeroes in on the elements of Lost Highway that turned off most (but not all) audiences in 1997 but are titillating new (and revisiting) viewers today. Ryan should know; he was one of those who looked away in the nineties: “The first time I saw it,...

In a way, “Succession” will never end. The Roy family’s wealth is too immense to be squelched in a single episode — even a finale that’s as long as a film. That kind of money isn’t even money anymore; it’s capital, power, and, as Kendall put it in his eulogy to Logan, “the lifeblood […] of this wonderful civilization we have built from the mud.” Whomever succeeds the Waystar Royco business titan will grab the reigns of an ecosystem that may not be too big to fail, but certainly protects its own. Barring an asteroid smashing into the planet or a significant time-jump into the post-apocalypse, “Succession’s” ending isn’t likely to halt the Roys’ destructive rampage across this planet. There will be survivors. There will be enterprise. There will be wealth.

But we won’t get to see any of it because “Succession” is still ending.

From trans lives to celebrations of drag, queer film pulled no punches as it hit screens in the 90s with a DIY bravura that transformed the movie industry

Queer film exploded like a glitter cannon in the 1990s, sending sparkling product raining down in every direction. Trans lives hit the screen in Orlando and Boys Don’t Cry, alongside dynamic bulletins from the Black queer experience. We had jubilant celebrations of drag with Paris Is Burning and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, provocations from New Queer Cinema in the shape of Poison, Swoon and Edward II; there were auteurist masterpieces and timeless coming-out stories. The Wachowski sisters, Lisa Cholodenko, François Ozon and Bruce Labruce all made their debuts; Pedro Almodóvar and Gus Van Sant went stratospheric. Benefiting from a surge in the fortunes of independent cinema, and a defined focus for anger brought about by Aids activism, queer...

By Glenn Charlie Dunks

We are looking at some of the movies playing Canada's beloved HotDocs festival. First up is buzzy Sundance hit, The Stroll.

The conversation around Jennie Livingston's iconic 1990 documentary Paris is Burning has been happening for many years now. The conversation that its white cis director profited financially and professionally from the lives of its black and latinx trans subjects who got very little out of its production. Whatever one thinks of it, it's hard to deny that as much as a film like The Stroll is needed today, it was also needed back then, too. Co-directed by Kristen Lovell and Zackary Drucker—two women directors who identify as transgender—The Stroll is the continued reclamation of trans stories on screen by those who have lived and breathed the life that it documents.

As you might expect, with this comes a lot of emotions to unpack.

Though his life and accomplishments were largely erased under Napoleon, the extraordinary figure at the center of Stephen Williams’ “Chevalier” really did exist. Born on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, the son of a white plantation owner and his Black slave, Joseph Bologne went on to excel in spheres rarely accessible to people of color in 18th-century French society. Here was a champion swordsman and celebrated musician invited to play his violin at Versailles, where Marie Antoinette reportedly accompanied him on the harpsichord.

So why has it taken so long for his story to be told?

The time certainly seems right to rediscover the Chevalier — an honorary title that reveals how high Bologne rose under France’s overtly racist Code Noir, as well as a fitting name for the film. A compelling example of Black excellence dating back even before the French Revolution, the English-language “Chevalier” doesn’t feel nearly...

Punchy delivery styles, shimmering personalities and kaleidoscopic perspectives make up the soul of D. Smith’s gutsy documentary Kokomo City, which chronicles the experiences of four Black trans women sex workers living in New York and Atlanta. The principal participants — Daniella Carter, Dominique Silver, Koko Da Doll and Liyah Mitchell — are an electric bunch, and the diversity of their testimonies propels this worthwhile project into refreshing, uninhibited territory.

From its opening moments, Kokomo City distinguishes itself from other documentaries — including its antecedent and most obvious point of comparison, Paris Is Burning. Instead of an expository voiceover or an establishing montage, we get Mitchell — sitting in her bedroom, hair wrapped in a silk scarf — telling us about a near-fatal encounter with a client. The story begins on a sober note and gains more levity as Mitchell burrows into the details of each scene: the client walking into her apartment, her split-second decision to steal his gun,...

Sundance 2023: ‘Invisible Beauty’ Directed by Bethann Hardison and Frédéric Tcheng

Premieres

How to write and how to make a film about one’s life is an ongoing discussion between Bethann Hardison and Frédéric Tcheng as Bethann’s life reveals itself. She is new to writing and filmmaking but she has the confidence to go forward without putting obstacles in front of herself. Her procrastination or preparation for writing takes a role in the film as well. This immediately allies me to her. Don’t we all procrastinate about the most important things in our lives?

Raised by her mother and grandmother in the South til the age of 12, she then moved in with her father in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Her mother was very social; her father was very intellectual. He was an Iman at the local mosque and was a mentor to Malcolm X himself. He made her aware of things poltically and socially as well as directing her reading about the Moslem religion and the Koran. Raising consciousness was most important to her father. When she turned 18 she yearned for teen freedom and her father returned her to her mother and grandmother. Subsequently she attended NYU.

Bethann Hardison

Over the five decades of her career, from working in New York City’s Garment District, modeling and founding her eponymous modeling agency, she has become an advocate, mentor and muse. To hear her honest and forthwright assessment of the state of her own life is inspirational.

She was a fashion revolutionary, but to her, fashion was merely the vehicle for her revolutionary ideas which changed the fashion industry’s diversity of models to include people of all colors. Her main concern was changing the world. “I always know — because I have lived life long enough — you can change things.”

From walking runway shows alongside Iman to discovering supermodels like Tyson Beckford (that gorgeous black model for Ralph Lauren) and mentoring icons like Naomi Campbell, Hardison has been at the epicenter of major representational shifts in fashion. Catalyzing change requires continuous championing, and as the next generation takes the reins, Hardison reflects on her personal journey and the cost of being a pioneer.

She has received many awards in recognition of her decades of advocacy work .See Naomi Campbell present Bethann with the Founders Award at 2014 Cfda Fashion Awards award and her acceptance speech.

In tandem with Frédéric Tcheng (Halston, Dior and I), the co-directors trace Hardison’s impact on fashion from runway shows in New York and Paris in the ’70s to roundtables about lack of racial diversity in the early 2000s. Hardison’s audaciousness and candor are inspiring and inviting. Interviews with industry speak to the state of fashion, while friends and family attest to Hardison’s rebellious and ambitious spirit. The film is an absorbing record of Hardison’s accomplishments and a rare contemplation on the life of a radical thinker.

The arc of Bethann’s life was easily illustrated through archival and commentary, but the great depth of the film is created by Bethann herself. The film centers on Bethann writing her memoir as much as it does the events of her life. She’s filled with adages and life lessons, “Bethann-isms” as her crew called them. The process of Bethann writing her memoir gives the opportunity to better inject her personality and humor into the film, both through traditional voiceover and with an incredible cache of recorded phone calls between Fred and Bethann. Many of these conversations are the two co-directors discussing how best to tell such an expansive story. They give a genuine sense of an artist in process. Putting together such disparate elements to make a unified whole is not an easy process. For successfully integrating the scenes of reflection and introspection, the feeling of Bethann’s inner thought processes, credit goes to the editing by Chris McNabb. Read his enlightening interview in Filmmaker Magazine.

McNabb in turn also give much credit to the music in the film. His own great muse is music. States he, “I’d say one of my biggest influences is actually music. I grew up playing percussion and carry a lot of that experience with me in the edit room when locating the internal rhythm of footage. I think it helps me build scenes that can affect a viewer on a corporeal level rather than just an intellectual one. In terms of film influences, Paris Is Burning, despite its thorny ethical history, was a formative film for me on a personal and creative level.” About the Invisible Beauty: “And music! Music was very important, and composer Marc Anthony Thompson did a great job capturing the vibe we wanted.”

Frédéric Tcheng is a French-born filmmaker based in Brooklyn. His specialty is fashion. He co-directed Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, and his award-winning directorial debut, Dior and I, premiered at Tribeca in 2014. Halston, with CNN Films and Amazon Studios as executive producers, premiered at Sundance in 2019.

The producer of Invisible Beauty, Lisa Cortés directed another Sundance 2023 film, Little Richard: I Am Everything. After its critical success there, being nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in U.S. Documentary Competition (Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni won) and being picked up by Magnolia for U.S. and international distribution, Cortés entered into a first-look development agreement with the Museum of the City of New York, where she will hone documentary IP based on the museum’s exhibitions. She plans for projects on food, social justice, music, and more. The first being made under the deal is a docuseries based on Gingerbread NYC: The Great Borough Bake-Off, an exhibition inviting bakers from every borough to design New York City-inspired gingerbread creations.

Invisible Beauty invites comparison with Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project as both are autobiographical docs about notably important Black women. Bethann is an activist forever aiming to reach objectives and Niki is a poet, looking inward, exposing herself and making changes in the awareness around her. Bethann on the other hand, as she states it, always held her hand close to her chest and rarely let her emotional have free rein.

They make a good pairing though if I were to have to choose one, I would choose Invisible Beauty. The film ranges broadly from the outer world of fashion itself to Bethann’s part in it and to her inner reflections whereas the Nikki Giovanni doc mostly shows her speaking to others. Moreover, and on a strictly personal level, I would rather be in Bethann’s company. Bethann is a positive, strong nurturing woman. Nikki’s inner pain and anger often seem to vent in the doc and I think I would feel uncomfortable in her company. In fact I don’t think she would like me much either. Bethann’s fortitude sets the tone of Invisible Beauty and it is fortitude and love that will propel us forever forward.

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At its best, Sundance is really about Cinderella stories — the starving artists who come to Utah hoping to captivate audiences comprised of the industry and the public, effectively crashing the gates of Hollywood.

The most compelling pair of glass slippers at the festival this year belonged to D. Smith, whose directorial debut “Kokomo City” claimed two big awards in the Next section: the coveted audience award and Adobe’s Innovator prize. The film follows four Black trans sex workers in America and is unflinching in its depiction of sex, identity politics and (gasp) levity.

“Kokomo City” is a rare entry in the queer nonfiction genre, in that it does not focus solely on the trauma of marginalized people. The film is so dynamic that the lone juror handing out awards in the Next section, Madeleine Olnek, called it “the funniest movie that has ever played Sundance.”

Following her big win,...

Kokomo City is not a real place. It’s more like a state of mind, invented by director D. Smith, who is Black and trans, to describe the space that her sisters occupy in the world. Theirs is an identity that is barely understood by the public and frequently misrepresented by the media, but is here defined by a handful of tell-it-like-it-is trans sex workers who offer snappy, whip-smart insights into their lives, dreams and the down-low dudes who adore them. In Smith’s short, salty micro-budget doc, the t-girls spill the tea, totally reframing the conversation.

A singer-songwriter who produced for the likes of Lil Wayne and Katy Perry, only to see her livelihood dry up when she transitioned, Smith still thinks in terms of music. During the course of shooting this film, the self-taught director stumbled across a nearly 90-year-old recording called “Sissy Man Blues” from all-but-forgotten Black crooner Kokomo Arnold.

“If we got rid of every gay man in the military, there would be no military,” a sympathetic officer tells Marine recruit Ellis French in “The Inspection.” That’s an exceptionally open-minded take on the United States’ “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, seeing as how pretty much everyone else French encounters at boot camp is openly hostile to there being a gay man among them. But writer-director Elegance Bratton made it through the system — like the character, he’d been lost and homeless for a decade before enlisting — and this deeply personal narrative debut is one gay Black man’s way of showing how he not only survived the experience, but was strengthened by it. “The few, the proud,” as they say.

To play himself — er, French — Bratton tapped Emmy nominee Jeremy Pope (“Hollywood”), soon to be seen as Basquiat on Broadway in “The Collaboration.” Pope gives a...

“This Must Be how the white gays felt when Madonna’s Confessions on a Dance Floor came out,” I direct-messaged my best friend in the wee hours of July 29, 2022. “Finally, an album for us.”

It was the third consecutive time I had listened to Beyoncé’s seventh studio album, Renaissance, after it debuted at midnight. As a Black queer millennial who grew up anticipating the global superstar’s stylishly curated releases, this felt remarkably personal. Beyoncé has never been a stranger to giving a nod to LGBTQ themes and artists...

Coined by the film historian and critic B. Ruby Rich in 1992 to give voice to the explosion in queer film she was witnessing on the burgeoning film festival circuit, the New Queer Cinema’s influence on independent film cannot be overstated. The ‘80s saw films like Jim Jarmusch’s “Stranger Than Paradise” and Steven Soderbergh’s “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” explode the idea of what film could be, in turn inspiring a new generation of radical queer filmmakers to pick up the camera and crack the whole thing wide open.

As Hollywood churned out blockbusters like “Terminator 2” and “Jurassic Park,” anyone paying attention could see that the real fun was being had way below budget. Sundance was still a new little gathering in Park City, where someone fresh out of film school could show a film and meet likeminded artists. Throughout the decade, Sundance gradually established itself as the...

In the opening minutes of “We Met in Virtual Reality,” a bunch of avatars resembling animals and anime characters enter an open world based on “Jurassic Park,” hop into vehicles, and speed around the landscape with glee as a handheld camera tracks their moves. Later, that same camera visits house parties, dance classes, and a marriage ceremony.

Anyone who hasn’t strapped on a VR headset might think they were watching a low-budget animated movie with glitchy effects, but “We Met in Virtual Reality” is actually a groundbreaking documentary shot exclusively in VRchat, the popular VR social platform. The feature-length debut of UK-based filmmaker Joe Hunting stems from his experiences roaming VRchat over the course of three years, during which time he befriended many of the communities within. Hunting, who supports himself in part by working as a VR event photographer, has provided the most robust opportunity to experience the...

Billy Porter (Pose) and Luke Evans (Nine Perfect Strangers) have signed on to star in the drama Our Son, from director Bill Oliver (Jonathan).

The film written by Oliver and Peter Nickowitz will follow a divorcing couple fighting for custody of their 8-year-old son. Fernando Loureiro (Frances Ha) and Guilherme Coelho (Oprhans of Eldorado) will produce via their company, Tigresa, along with Eric Binns (Lansky).

Porter is an actor, singer, director composer and playwright best known for his Emmy-winning turn as Ball scene emcee Pray Tell on FX’s Pose. The actor also recently appeared in Amazon’s live-action remake of Cinderella, CBS All Access’ The Twilight Zone and American Horror Story: Apocalypse, also narrating HBO Max’s docuseries, Equal. His theatre credits include the role of Lola in the Broadway musical Kinky Boots, which he originated in 2013—landing Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards, as well as...

Luke Evans and Billy Porter will portray husbands in the upcoming drama “Our Son,” a feature film about spouses going through a divorce and fighting over the custody of their 8-year-old son.

Bill Oliver is directing the movie from a script he co-wrote with Peter Nickowitz. Additional cast members, including the actor who will play their child, have not been announced. “Our Son” is currently in the process of setting a distributor.

Fernando Loureiro and Guilherme Coelho are producing via their company, Tigresa, along with producer Eric Binns.

Porter, an Emmy winner for “Pose,” most recently appeared alongside Camila Cabello in director Kay Cannon’s “Cinderella” remake. On television, he acted on “The Twilight Zone” for CBS All Access, “American Horror Story: Apocalypse” and narrated HBO Max’s “Equal.” Porter is set to make his directorial debut with the high school coming-of-age film “Anything’s Possible” written by Alvaro García Lecuona.

This June on HBO and HBO Max will play host to a new season of “Westworld,” a new adaptation of “Father of the Bride” and much more.

The big new Warner Bros. release on HBO and HBO Max this month is “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,” which actually debuted on the HBO Max streaming service on May 30. The third film in the Wizarding World prequel franchise first hit theaters in April, and is now available to stream in 4K.

There’s also the updated version of “Father of the Bride” premiering on June 16, while a pair of noteworthy documentaries are coming on the early side this month: “The Janes” premieres June 8 and follows unlikely outlaws in pre-Roe v. Wade America who defied state legislation that banned abortion, while “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” debuts on June 9.

As for original series, the fourth season of “Westworld” premieres on June...

With its list of new releases for June 2022, HBO Max is joining in what should be a TV summer to remember.

Not content to let Netflix’s Stranger Things or Prime Video’s The Boys to dominate the summer TV landscape, HBO is coming through with a new season of one of its big hits. Westworld season 4 is set to premiere June 26 on both HBO and HBO Max. What will this season of the increasingly confusing sci-fi drama be about? Per HBO’s synopsis it will be “A dark odyssey about the fate of sentient life on earth.” So you know, only that.

Irma Vep is the only other Max Original of note this month. Based on a 1996 cult classic of the same name, this limited series stars Alicia Vikander as a disillusioned movie star looking to remake the early 20th century French silent film serial Les Vampires.

It’s...

There is no shortage of documentaries to enjoy on television these days and the Emmy races for non-fiction categories are poised to reflect that. The creative forces behind four of those documentaries and series joined our recent Meet the Experts panel that covered subjects that included chronicling survivors of sexual abuse, celebrities reading letters from people whose lives were changed by them, the career of America’s top infectious disease doctor and a multi-level marketing company that specialized in women’s leggings.

In our roundtable conversation, we hear what the directors and producers behind these projects got them interested in making non-fiction material and the documentaries that leave them feeling good. Gold Derby recently discussed this and more with Aly Raisman (“Ally Raisman: Darkness to Light”), Donny Jackson (“Dear…”), John Hoffman and Janet Tobias (“Fauci”) and Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason (“LuLaRich”).

You can watch the television documentary group...

The U.K.’s Vertigo Films and Germany’s SquareOne Productions are teaming on Young Adult focused supernatural drag drama “Vamping.”

Billed as a mix of “Pose” and “The Vampire Diaries,” the eight-part series is set against the backdrop of Berlin’s hedonistic, nocturnal LGBTQ+ club culture. It follows young British drag queen, Everett who, after a triumphant performance at Berlin’s hottest drag club, finds that he has unwittingly been turned into a vampire. He sets off to uncover the truth and finds himself the protagonist in an impending culture war between vampire tribes.

“Vamping” was created by the U.K.’s Matthew Jacobs Morgan (“The Rig”) and German-American multi-disciplinary artist and screenwriter Sophie-Yukiko Hasters. As a central figure of the Qtpoc (queer and trans people of colour) community in Berlin, on the series Sophie-Yukiko Hasters brings her experience of German Ballroom Culture; where she oversees the German faction...