★★★★☆
Anand, a gay man in his early 30s, is drawn back from Mumbai for the 10 days of mourning for his father in the countryside of his youth. There he reconnects with a young farmer in writer-director Rohan Kanawade’s beautiful and groundbreaking Cactus Pears (Sabar Bonda).
★★★★☆
With artistic and poetic inspirations, Lucio Castro’s Drunken Noodles unfolds across four chapters following Adnam, and the people he encounters, across two summers in and around New York.
★★★★☆
Cliff’s small-town existence is disrupted by the arrival of Marg who claims to be his birth mother. Soon he is swept into her unorthodox adventures, while trying to learn about himself, in Nick Butler’s delightfully offbeat Lunar Sway.
★★★★☆
Isabel Daly’s feature directorial debut Washed Up is a quirky and moving British indie shining a unique light on life and love in Cornwall.
★★★★☆
Pillion is a sensational feature debut by Harry Lighton with graphic images of sub-dom gay sex.
★★★☆☆
Loosely based on the gentle, charming Italian 2008 film Mid-August Lunch, a national holiday when cities are deserted, Four Mothers, directed by Darren Thornton, opens out into a broader Irish take on getting old and being gay.
★★★★☆
A young writer dives into the world of sex work for content for his debut novel: soon the lines between research and reality become blurred in writer-director Mikko Mäkelä’s Sebastian.
★★★★☆
Two men, each having a tough time, meet during one London evening and spend the night talking and learning about themselves in director Liam Calvert’s A Night Like This.
★★★☆☆
Benji is left broken after the end of his relationship with Jake. In flashback we’re taken through Benji’s difficult journey with Jake in the painful and funny Departures.
★★★★☆
Lonely scientist Harvey lives a solitary life but discovering Cherub, a magazine for larger men and their admirers, leads to unexpected confidence and joy in writer-director Devin Shears’ Cherub.
★★★☆☆
Misericordia by Alain Guiraudie is an entertaining and disturbing mixture of sex and death.
★★★☆☆
During a hot day at the beach, friends Demosthenes and Nikitas work on a screenplay about the summer two years earlier in director Zacharias Mavroeidis’ sexy comedy The Summer with Carmen.
★★★★☆
Opponent, written and directed by Milad Alami, is a powerful, must-see film about the refugee experience and conflicted desires.
★★★★☆
When Gabriel and Nicky’s marriage comes to a sudden end, they are soon locked in a tumultuous custody battle for their eight-year-old son Owen in director Bill Oliver’s moving divorce drama Our Son.
