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Outfest is one of the oldest and largest queer film festivals in the world. Established in 1982. it is one of the only global LGBTQIA+ arts, media and 
entertainment organizations whose programs empower artists, communities, and filmmakers to transform the world through their stories, while also supporting the entire life-cycle of their careers. Last year it became one of the 4 major Fest that launched the North American Queer Festival Alliance, an initiative to further publicize and promote LGBT film.
The Outfest Team obviously do not have a superstitious fear amongst them as this year’s Fest kicks off on Friday 13th of August Over the next 10 days, it will screen 170+ new movies that cover the whole queer spectrum. It is a brilliant eclectic program that will entertain, educate, inform and shake up your sensibilities and emotions.
Normally Queerguru publishes its Top Ten Picks, but we want to break with that tradition this time. Our review team are actually still working their way through the program, so what we have come up with at this stage are QUEERGURU’S MUST SEE PICKS ….. which we will probably add to as the festivities begin
Here they are in alphabetical order m and if you click on each title it will take you our full review of that movie
AIDS DIVA Filmmaker Dante Alencastre’s film rightly gives credit to one of the great heroes of the LGBTQ community that we all need to know about. Connie Norman was a wonderful fierce transgender woman whose HIV status made her turn into a major driving force in the AIDS pandemic. She was a powerful articulate advocate that railed against complacency, hatred, and denial right up until July of 1996 when she died at age 47 of complications of AIDS.
BEING BEBE: Newbie filmmaker EMILY BRANHAM took a shine to BeBe aka MARSHALL NGWA back in 2006 before the world came to know about him. Then the tall good-looking man from Cameron in West Africa was living in Minneapolis Minnesota and doing amateur drag in a local gay bar. Even then he stood out as his costumes and performances were heavily immersed and inspired by his African Culture. After Bebe was the first-ever winner of Ru Paul’s Drag Race she had a roller coaster life of rags to riches and back again which she shares with disarming honesty that makes this doc so compelling and such a sheer joy to watch.
BOULEVARD: A Hollywood Story. In 1950 DICKSON HUGHES and RICHARD STAPLEY, two young songwriters and romantic partners approached GLORIA SWANSON with a new Musical they had written just for her. The 50+-year-old star still glowing in the reception of SUNSET BOULEVARD FILM, had been champing at the bitt as offers of film roles had simply dried up. So she persuaded the couple to change their plans and write a musical based on Sunset Boulevard for her to recreate Norma Desmond. This previously untold story, the latest fascinating doc from Emmy Award Winner Jeffrey Schwarz is what happened to that musical and also the men’s love affair
Boy Meets Boy : In this film by Daniel Sanchez Lopez two gay men meet each other on the dancefloor in Berlin after 24 hours of clubbing. At first, it’s the hazy intimacy of drugs that bring them together but soon, as they talk and chill, they fall into the comfort of compatibility. The magic of the film creeps up on you unaware. Its structure hides behind the ebb and flow of the two central characters’ dialogue. The easy-flowing conversation is the side effect of Hannah Renton and Lopez’s script never drawing attention to itself. Its visual appeal is from camerawork that disappears.
Fanny: The Right To Rock is an exhilarating new documentary from Bobbi Jo Hart about the trailblazing all-female rock band from the 197O’s who never ever got the recognition they deserved. These women were pioneers whose musicality and sheer style paved the way for so many female rocks stars who followed.
FIREBIRD is an enormously satisfying and complete film. It tells a full tale of life, and love, and loss from its beginning right up to an end that could never need or want a sequel. PEETER REBANE‘S story of two Soviet military recruits, a pilot officer and a private, falling in love on a military base during the 70s cold war, is based on a true story. Skeptical as we are about stories ‘based on’ truth, people’s ages and weights on dating profiles might make that same claim, there is an undeniably human element to this story that grips the heart and mind with a sense of both individuality and history
GEMMEL and TIM: This very timely and extremely well-measured doc will probably leave most people angry. It’s about the lives and widely publicized deaths of Gemmel “Juelz” Moore and Timothy “Tim” Dean two gay Black men who died of a meth overdose at the Laurel Street apartment of Democratic donor, Ed Buck. The story that the media presented was hatefully homophobic and racist and went to great lengths to defend the fake reputation of Buck who is finally locked up behind bars. We all need to watch this one.
JUMP DARLING : When you reach the end of the road you are on, what can you do? There are two answers, you stop or change direction. In CLORIS LEACHMAN’s final film made prior to her death, both these alternates are explored, and the poignancy is inescapable. Leachman plays Grams, the aging grandmother grown tired, frail, and distanced from the passions that engulfed her earlier years. Dreams of joining the ice capades are barely a memory. Facing a slow exit from her life, or the inertia of a retirement home, she grapples with what little sovereignty she has left. It is an exquisite swan song for one helluva wonderfully actress and person
No Straight Lines: VIVIAN KLEIMAN’S intriguing doc looks at the impact of queer comics in the evolution of the LGBTQ community by examining the lives and work of 5 of its most well-known practitioners. They include AILSON BECHDEL whose graphic novel FUN HOME was turned into a Tony Award-Winning Musical, and RUPERT KINNARD who created the first ongoing gay/lesbian-identified African-American comic-strip characters. Although slightly patchy at times, Kleiman’s film does however play tribute to this oft underappreciated art that makes for compelling viewing.
POTATO DREAMS OF AMERICA queer filmmaker WES HURLEY’S excellent autobiographical tale of his journey from Russia as a young gay immigrant is the perfect choice for the opening night gala. Maybe a tad patchy in parts but it’s a joyous wee film with some wonderful surprises like an adorable JONATHAN BENNETT as Jesus and an almost unrecognizable LEA DELARIA giving a scene-stealing performance.
REBEL DYKES: In the opening minutes of this powerful documentary we hear a voice that says ‘ we were young, working-class and poor: we were dykes NOT lesbians.” It is a statement of fact but there is a slight edge to it which we take as a warning not to misinterpret who this group of queer women really were. The film starts in the early 1980’s when a group of women set up a Camp outside the RAF MILITARY BASE ON GREENHAM COMMON in the UK. They were ostensibly there to protest the fact that the Government was allowing the US Military to store nuclear CRUISE MISSILES there.
Even though the documentary ends with a ‘where are they now’ section and most of the women seemed enveloped in some form of respectability, they still come over as good-spirited and still anarchic and funny(!). It’s just that their fierceness has mellowed. Kudos to filmmakers HARRI SHANAHAN, Sian A. Williams, and SIOBHAN FAHEY for making this fascinating record. Our queer history so needs to be told, so we can all remember the journey that others have made on our behalf.
OUTFEST LA 2021 AUGUST 13 -22
Labels: 2021, Must Sees, OUTFEST 2021, Top Picks
