A few years ago I joined GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, which releases their yearly Dorian Awards to celebrate film and TV with a particular lens on queer media. At that point, my work was focused solely on TV. Facing the pressure of submitting a ballot for their film awards, I began watching the film screeners coming through my email inbox and eventually applying for film festival press passes. That’s how my journey to film-watching began, even though television is and will always be my priority. But it’s always fun to dip my toe into the film world, get inspired and/or uninspired, and run back to my small screen. As my Letterboxd account says, I’m always watching film through the lens of a telephile. That being said, there are some really good movies circulating at festivals right now, some absolutely worth peeling yourself away from your TV screen to see in theatres.
Some of these movies played at the Vancouver International Film Festival, my local fest that brings in some of the best programming in the country. I love VIFF so much—it’s reasonably priced, primarily a for-the-people festival (meaning tickets don’t get snatched up by buyers and industry folks), and movies play all over the city which lets you discover new parts of Vancouver. This year I saw a movie at Alliance Française Vancouver, a French school, and a movie at The Park, the theatre that Cineplex closed down but is now considered independent after Mike Flanagan, Osgood Perkins, Sean Baker, and Finn Wolfhard (among others) pooled their money together to buy it as investors. That’s actually where I saw Tender Loving Care, in the same screening alongside Carrie Coon, who was in town for a Q&A and to receive VIFF’s inaugural Luminary Award. The whole vibe of the festival is always great—non-pretentious, chill, mixed audiences of young cinephiles and much older folks. Movies don’t always start on time but it’s kind of charming. There is always a pre-movie ad about the power of film that is somewhat absorbing until it’s revealed it’s actually just promoting Rolex—this one gets crowds cackling every single year without fail (by the end of the festival the giggles get quieter).
Audience awards are selected based on voting at the end of the movie (conducted a little clumsily by having volunteers holding QR codes up at the end of each screening) and the top prize went to I Love Rocky this year. I remember that movie generating a lot of hype when I was at TIFF although from afar it’s not really my type of movie. I was too busy watching all the gay stuff, naturally. I would’ve much rather seen Club Kid win but that’s fine. In the Canadian Northern Lights category, Smudge the Blades won (featuring Paulina Alexis from Reservation Dogs), which I am interested to see but feel a bit hockeyed-out. There are a few other categories but I do want to note that Jim Queen won in the Altered States category (“oddities,” as VIFF calls it), a queer animated film I definitely need to see.
Like always, I had to balance the festival with my usual TV watching and work meaning I couldn’t watch five films a day. It didn’t feel as exhausting as my time at TIFF because I could come home to my bed, workout at my gym, and meet up with friends in lines. I even made it out to the annual Phobos/Oddfellows party hosted by Chris Ferguson and Osgood Perkins, although I had to sneak out before the party really got started to catch a screening (my favourite natural wine bar in the city, Bar Tartare, was catering). It’s reassuring to know I can really have a full movie festival experience by just staying in my own city.
If you’re ever curious to visit Vancouver, planning a trip in early October before the winter rain deluge and while you can snatch a few movie tickets is my recommendation. Below is what I had a chance to check out this year, thanks to their generous press pass—otherwise, see you next year, VIFF!
The highlights:
Coward (dir. Lukas Dhont) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Coward, Belgium’s submission to the Oscars, surpassed my expectations. I don’t love war movies, I find them depressing and nauseating, but I found myself rooting for Pierre (Emmanuel Macchia), who does anything he can to avoid the World War I frontlines and hang out with the army’s very gay theatre troupe instead.
He strikes up a wartuationship with Francis (Valentin Campagne), the lead performer and creative mind behind the little musical numbers they put together. For a while, art is the perfect escape from war, until they realize the little world they’ve created together can’t last forever. I was fully bracing for a heart-wrenching end to this story, but I was (thankfully) wrong. There are a lot of overlapping themes here with La bola negra, but I actually think the way desire is portrayed here was much more effective and engaging.
Tender Loving Care (dir. Mike Leigh) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Ugh, I loved this. I left Tender Loving Care thinking about what it’s like to see your parents age, how quickly things can change, and the importance of having a glass of chilled white wine with your bestie at any given time. They’re saying this is Mike Leigh’s last film (I also loved Hard Truths), I desperately need to watch the rest of his filmography. I don’t know if I’ve seen anything recently that more accurately encapsulates the joy of the good ol’ yap. Sitting together over tea or drinks, sharing memories, offering each other words of wisdom and encouragement, reminiscing—these conversations, whether light or heavy, help you grow closer to the ones you love and really are the reasons to live.
La Gradiva (dir. Marine Atlan) ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
I can’t believe this is a feature film debut for this director because it feels so fully realized. Like I feel with many films over two hours, there are lulls where I would chop—but I otherwise was quite drawn in by this group of seniors from France on a school trip to Pompeii. Antonia Buresi is fantastic as Madame Mercier, I was much more tuned in to her lectures about Italian art and architecture than her students, that’s for sure, and Colas Quignard gives a devastating performance as a delinquent gay student who has a fling with a local Italian man he meets on Grindr after lying about his age.
The rest of the students each get their moment to shine too as they butt heads and learn more about themselves—it really feels like you’re on this school trip with them, from the first to last day. At the end of the film, on-screen text keeps the story going and tells you what happens to this group of teens after they get back to France—making me feel like the story didn’t want to end there. A miniseries would have been great. Now that I think of it, there are a lot of similarities with Luca Guadagnino’s underrated HBO series We Are Who We Are here.
Not as impressed:
Fjord (dir. Cristian Mungiu) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan star in this Norwegian Palm d’Or winner in which their conservative, religious family moves to a small coastal town. Everything seems fine until teachers start noticing bruises on one of the kids, sparking an entire child protective services investigation into what is going on. Similarly to Anatomy of a Fall, the movie doesn’t spoon-feed you any conclusions.
I suppose you could probably choose to believe either end of the question (whether or not they do beat their kids; what counts as “discipline” and what is specific to our time and culture). This is another movie that felt long to me, but the performances are great and the setting stunning—I just feel like the movie holds you at arm’s length and never really lets you access the authentic emotions of the character, which made it hard for me to engage with it.
La bola negra (dir. Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I feel like I’m supposed to love this movie. Three Spanish gay men across three timelines are interconnected for reasons that don’t become clear until you get deeper into the movie. I kept waiting to be wowed, or to feel depths of emotion, but I was left feeling removed. Don’t get me wrong, this movie is visually stunning—some of the best cinematography I’ve seen this year. But I couldn’t help but feel the directors wanted to direct a music video rather than a film? There was a style over substance problem here, in my view.
Take the central love story—which Variety is calling “racy.” These characters barely touch, let alone kiss, or really explore their desire for each other. Coward actually depicts that physical connection and the power of touch—I didn’t feel that at all with La bola negra. The friend I saw this with described the film as “not genuine” which I sadly have to agree with. This feels blasphemous because I want to support queer films (obviously), it seems like it’s vying for a best picture win, and I loved Veneno, the fantastic series by these directors—but it just didn’t quite hit the mark for me.
A Long Winter (dir. Andrew Haigh) ⭐️⭐️1/2
A long, slow slog. I will watch whatever Andrew Haigh makes after Looking and All of Us Strangers, but I felt somewhat misled that this would be a film about queerness. It’s more so a film about a missing mother in which the lead, played by Fred Hechinger (who I do really like, he’s come a long way since The White Lotus), is a little bit horny for men sometimes. Things take something of a turn when his dad hires a live-in housekeeper played by D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (Reservation Dogs), but this also sort of leads nowhere of note. At least it’s a very television-core cast between Ebon Moss-Bachrach (who shows full frontal btw), Caitríona Balfe, and Kit Connor (who has like five minutes of screen time). Very beautiful snowy Alberta landscapes though!
Other films I watched:
Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother (dir. Bassam Tariq) ⭐️⭐️
First Comes Love: Nakabingwit (dir. Joella Cabalu) ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Flesh & Fuel (dir. Pierre Le Gall) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Screened at TIFF (in case you missed that newsletter):
Club Kid (dir. Jordan Firstman) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Elsinore (dir. Simon Stone) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Debut (dir. Jesse Eisenberg) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Stuffed (dir. Theo Rhys) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Love of Your Life (dir. Rachel Morrison) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Minotaur (dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Face of Horror (dir. Anna Biller) ⭐️⭐️1/2
Seventeen (dir. Justin Ducharme) ⭐️⭐️1/2
The Julia Set (dir. Niki Byrne) ⭐️⭐️