NewFest: Alice Junior

By Abe Friedtanzer

Attitude can make a world of difference in a difficult situation. Sage advice dictates that a person can only change themselves, not others. Positivity may not prevent pain or misery, but when it’s the only option, it’s better than nothing. A strong front doesn’t mean that assailants will be deterred, and it may even encourage offenders to only continue what they are doing. But bravery and acceptance can, in certain circumstances, help lead to a better future in which others won’t need to shield themselves in the same way thanks to the creation of a new culture. 

Alice Junior (Anne Celestino Mota) is a social media star with many followers who ask her admiring questions about the experience of being trans. When her father (Emmanuel Rosset) gets a new job, she is forced to move to a conservative town and attend a Catholic school where the close-minded principal insists that she wear a male uniform...

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NewFest: Irish comedy "Dating Amber"

Coverage from NewFest the 32nd Annual LGBTQ Film Festival

By Abe Friedtanzer

I imagine that I’ll be thinking about Normal People for a while every time I watch an Irish romance (or maybe just any Irish production!). If I can’t see Connell and Marianne on screen again, the next-best thing is probably Dating Amber, a wonderfully entertaining comedy showing at NewFest. One of its stars is Fionn O’Shea, who portrayed the despicable and manipulative Jamie in Normal People. He's one of the romantic leads this time...

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NewFest: "Cowboys"

Coverage from NewFest the 32nd Annual LGBTQ Film Festival

 

by Abe Friedtanzer

Films about young transgender children tend to focus on the responses of parents to the reality of what their children express to them. Teenagers can talk back and run away from home, but if they’re younger, it’s unlikely that they will be able to fully separate themselves from a situation, good or bad. A Kid Like Jake was one recent effort starring Claire Danes and Jim Parsons about parents who were mostly on the same page about accepting their four-year-old. Cowboys, which is screening as part of NewFest, finds its adults at odds when it comes to supporting their child, Joe…

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New Fest Lineup!

by Nathaniel R

 Paul Bettany is "Uncle Frank" in a road trip film from Alan Ball
New York City's leading queer film festival is now in its 32nd year. And this year you don't even need to be in NYC to attend since they've gone virtual...

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Interview: Jayro Bustamante on 'Temblores'

by Murtada Elfadl

In this followup to his debut Ixcanul (2015), Jayro Bustamante shifts his focus from rural Guatemala to Guatemala City and both its vibrant queer subculture and strict evangelical institutions that believe in a type of gay conversion therapy. Temblores is about Pablo a seemingly straight father and husband who tries to balance both his life as an out man and his responsibilities to his children and family and does not find an easy compromise. The film won the grand jury prize recently at NewFest, New York’s LGBTQ film festival, I was a member of that jury.

I recently spoke to Bustamnate about the film and how he based it on research and interviews with many men - he called them his Pablos which is the main character’s name - who were forced to come out and some faced rituals of conversion therapy to reconcile with their religous beliefs and with their Christian families...

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