Queer Cinema(s)

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Fred Halsted plays himself in his notorious autobiographical portrait of Los Angeles. Two men have a fleetingly idyllic meeting outside of town while Halsted shows a young pick-up the ropes within city limits.Read More »

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Un cinéphile rencontre sur une plage de Ramatuelle son cinéaste préféré. Il lui propose de mettre en film la douloureuse aventure qu’il vient de vivre. Les deux hommes vont tricoter les scènes, chacun à sa manière. Le cinéaste ne cesse de repousser le projet, arguant que la chute n’est pas bonne. Mais peut-être a-t-il une bonne raison de ne pas aller au bout de l’aventure … (from commeaucinema)Read More »

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House of Boys is a 2009 Luxembourgian-German drama film directed and written by Jean-Claude Schlim, starring Layke Anderson, Benn Northover and Udo Kier. The film follows the story of Frank, a gay teenager in the 80’s who runs away from his home to start a new life and later his struggle against the recently discovered AIDS.

The film soundtrack uses music from a number of renowned artists like Cockney Rebel, Jimmy Sommerville, Klaus Nomi, Roy Orbison, Spandau Ballet, Soft Cell, Udo Kier, Romy Haag, Dangerous Muse, and ends with “Là-bas” (Somewhere) (music by Cyril Collard and lyrics by Corine Blue) and performed by Nyco Lilliu.Read More »

The film is based on two poems – “Holes” and “Bone” ­– by American poet Eileen Myles, the iconic lesbian voice and permanent figure of the poetic New York scene. In the May of 2017, she came to St. Petersburg, Russia, to present a book – the first published Russian translations of her selected poems. The film is a dialog between Eileen and me, post-soviet queer visual artist. It’s an attempt to put different worlds and queer experiences in a cinematic form, borrowing and sharing with each other images, words, voices, affects, memories, encounters, losses, and intensity of lesbian/queer existence…Read More »

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Les Gazolines est un groupe issu du Front homosexuel d’action révolutionnaire (FHAR) formé à Paris en 1972 et dissous en 1974. Leur nom proviendrait de la chanson Gasoline Alley de Rod Stewart. Le mouvement est fondé par Maud Molyneux, Patrick Bertaux et Paquita Paquin comme une «sorte de continuation du FHAR». Parmi ses figures les plus connues, on compte Marie France — en quelque sorte la « mascotte » du groupe, même si elle n’en faisait pas partie, une sorte d’«égérie» —, Hélène Hazera, Jenny Bel’Air. Constitué de travestis3 et de femmes déguisées3, le petit groupe se signale par sa provocation esthétique, idéologique, et ses jeux sur le genre. Read More »

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The year is 1972. Master Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti is struck down by a stroke, rendering him, one would think, unable to continue making films—and this just two years after hitting a late-career high point with Death in Venice. But like many artists kept alive by their muse, Visconti heroically persevered, managing to complete two more films before finally succumbing to a heart attack in 1976. Adaptability being a key ingredient to any sort of artistic longevity, Visconti took his ailments not as hindrance, but as a challenge toward the realization of a new project. Taken by a story written by past collaborator Enrico Medioli and intrigued by the cinematic restrictions afforded such an intimate character study, Visconti—now very limited in his physical movements and activity—saw both personal and logistical promise in this tale of aging, nostalgia, and generational divide, which was entitled Conversation Piece after an illustrated novel of family portraits of the same name by Mario Praz.Read More »

Two women in their 70s, were close best friends when teenagers but never quite acted on their attraction to each other. The women meet again 50 years later by accident, with one a traditional farm housewife, the other a lesbian music professor about to retire. The film follows the next 80 days of the women’s rediscovery and exploration of their teenage relationship.Read More »

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Nineteen-year-old Ari confronts both his sexuality and his Greek family. Ari despises his once-beloved parents, former radical activists, for having entombed themselves in insular tradition. Ari is obsessed with gay sex, although he does make an unenthusiastic attempt to satisfy the sister of one of his best friends. While all of this is going on, he’s facing problems with his traditional Greek parents, who have no clue about his sexual activities.Read More »

SYNOPSIS
Unveiled is about a woman’s identity crisis, so it’s probably fitting that the film itself is torn between its affections to the shrill Yentl and grim Boys Don’t Cry. Fariba (Jasmin Tabatabai) arrives illegally in Germany from Iran and applies for political asylum after declaring she would be persecuted in her homeland for having had a lesbian affair with a married woman. In the film’s best scene, director Angelina Maccarone hints at the gender transference that will save Farbia: Inside a seemingly unisex bathroom (really it’s a trash heap for all undesirables), the woman offers a cigarette to a weeping man, Siamak (Navid Akhavan), in the adjacent stall, and Maccarone codes her main character’s uncertainty of the world in her decision to light the cigarette before passing it on.Read More »