When David, reluctantly going to school again, takes a part-time job at a rather cruisy Korean spa, his repressed sexuality finally bubbles up like a Jacuzzi, yet he’s so deeply repressed it’s tough to act on it. Living in Los Angeles’ Koreatown, 18-year-old Korean-American, David, is torn between two worlds: his immigrant parents’ traditional culture, repressive Christian religion, and home (where Korean is the sole language spoken), and the English-speaking Western outside world and its personal freedoms and opportunities. Their vengeful “kissing war” sequence is one of the year’s funniest. Delightfully, DuVall also reunites here onscreen with Cheerleader co-star Natasha Lyonne as a lesbian couple suffering their own hysterical relationship issues over a frisky bisexual interloper.
Out actress Clea DuVall, known for her roles in 1999’s But I’m A Cheerleader and more recently on HBO’s Veep as the secret service agent lover of First Daughter Catherine Meyer, turned feature director with this The Big Chill-inspired dramedy about a deeply dysfunctional couple whose friends stage an intervention that goes awry. An underlying sexual tension emerges, and so does unpredictability-this isn’t your cliché coming out flick, no sir. Routinely fighting, the pair is forced together when the former’s physician mother takes in the latter, a would-be veterinarian who savors nature and animals, when Thomas’ mother falls ill. Co-written by Celine Sciamma, whose 2011 feature Tomboy and 2014 Girlhood also evinced a mastery in depicting youth and queerness, Being 17 charts the uneasy relations between two high school outcasts, Damien and Thomas. Those include must-sees Wild Reeds (1994), The Witnesses (2007), and now Being 17. Kacey Mottet Klein (Damien) and Corentin Fila (Thomas) in BEING 17Ĭannes Film Festival award-winning director André Téchiné’s finest works have revolved around young queer men. Chaos ensues! Subversive and sizzling, writer/director Anna Mylaert’s brisk and gripping queer drama features a wonderfully complex, fiery queer protagonist, placed into a setting that could and probably should ignite.
Sexually adventurous and prone to cross-dressing, Pierre is tossed into a dramatic new situation when he learns that his mother had snatched him from a hospital while an infant and, after she’s arrested by authorities, he’s placed in the home of his comparatively uptight, bourgeoisie biological family.
The concept of gender fluidity is getting a lot of attention these days, especially among the younger generations, and 17-year-old Brazilian Pierre exemplifies it. Jenkins will also appear in person on January 5th for a conversation, scheduled between screenings of Moonlight and his 2008 feature debut, Medicine For Melancholy.
It’s been such a success and brought Jenkins so much “ones to watch” attention, that NYC’s Film Society of Lincoln Center has scheduled a 6-day series of films that inspired Jenkins titled Illuminating Moonlight ( from January 4-9. Struggling with his drug addicted mother and attraction to a friend who will come to betray him, it’s an achingly emotional, gorgeously shot, superbly acted, and most of all restrained and intimate artwork. Nominated for five Golden Globes and adapted from Tarell McCraney’s play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, Barry Jenkins’ acclaimed drama comprises three episodes in the life of Chiron, a young gay black Floridian: childhood, adolescence, and mid-20s.
To get a jump on the latter, we’ve included a handful of movies to watch for next year as well! Some films, of course, are still making the rounds while some have wider 2017 debuts scheduled (or are yet to be announced).
Here are 12 of 2016’s must-see LGBTQ films, which have screened at festivals, played at movie theaters, and/or appeared on digital streaming and on-demand services. They also represent exciting new work by both familiar filmmaker names: (André Téchiné’s Being 17) and new breakout talents ( Moonlight’s Barry Jenkins), and first-time feature directors (Andrew Ahn of Spa Night). In fact, from new twists on gay coming of age dramas to winking lesbian mystery-comedies to uplifting documentaries, these films serve as a virtual travelogue traversing Europe, South America, Asia, and of course, North America. The year 2016 contained some tragic twists and turns, but it’s also been a mighty fine year for LGBT cinema, with true diversity represented in subjects, themes, and the countries of origin.