Love Is Strange (2014)
★★★★★
A poignant New York story of love in a dark time, Ira Sachs’ Love Is Strange makes for a fine romance of the most human kind.
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Festival Review: 54 The Director’s Cut (2015)
★★★★☆
Chosen to premiere at Berlin (home of Cabaret), Mark Christopher’s 54: The Director’s Cut recreates a bygone age of synth-infused hedonism.
Festival Review: Nasty Baby (2015)
★★★☆☆
The comic story of a New York gay couple trying for a baby with their 30-something best friend, Sebastián Silva’s Nasty Baby falls apart in the final reel.
The Circle / Der Kreis (2014)
★★★★☆
Going back to the future through interviews with Switzerland’s first gay married couple, Stefan Haupt’s half-documentary The Circle reveals a postwar openness ahead of its time.
The Way He Looks / Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho (2014)
★★★☆☆
A Brazilian tale of blind love, Daniel Ribeiro’s The Way He Looks is a lyrical mood piece of adolescent self-discovery but short on feeling.
Pride (2014)
★★★★☆
Two very disparate communities forge an unexpected bond when a London gay and lesbian group supports a village of Welsh miners during the 1984/5 Miners’ Strike.
Lilting (2014)
★★★★☆
Giving Chinese whispers and cultural difference a voice, Hong Khaou’s Lilting is an intimate and moving study of translation, reconciliation and grief.
Cupcakes / Bananot (2013)
★★★☆☆
Baking up Israel’s lighter side in this goofy Eurovision parody, Eytan Fox’s Cupcakes is a sweet celebration of the power of camp.
Reaching For The Moon / Flores Raras (2013)
★★★☆☆
Bringing to light the sexual blossoming of American poet Elizabeth Bishop in Brazil, Bruno Barreto’s Reaching For The Moon loses its way in an overload of story.
Tom At The Farm / Tom à la Ferme (2013)
★★★★☆
A relationship tattooed in love and hate, Xavier Dolan’s Tom At The Farm is a tense thriller where homosexual love meets homophobia at its most dangerous.
Stranger By The Lake / L’Inconnu Du Lac (2013)
★★★★☆
With murderers among us, Alain Guiraudie’s Stranger By The Lake turns a sexually explicit peek at gay cruising into a political metaphor in the horror genre.
Kill Your Darlings (2013)
★★★★☆
Will the circle be unbroken? John Krokidas’ Kill Your Darlings uncovers Allen Ginsberg’s dance with death as the Beat generation stage a writers’ revolution.
Floating Skyscrapers / Plynace Wiezowce (2013)
★★★☆☆
Down and out in Warsaw, Tomasz Wasilewski’s haunting Floating Skyscrapers explores identity in flux and gay love in a hopeless place in contemporary Poland.
Blue Is The Warmest Colour / La Vie d’Adèle (2012)
★★★★☆
Courting controversy all the way from Cannes, Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is The Warmest Colour puts the graphic back into graphic novel.