FRESH NEWFEST FILMS
5 Provocative LGBTQ Films To See
NewFest is New York City’s largest LGBTQ+ film festival. Occurring every year in October, NewFest showcases films by and about LGBTQ+ people from all over the world. In addition to the yearly film festival, NewFest hosts regular screenings. The 31st annual NewFest film festival 2019 will go from October 23-29. Now we’re taking a look at 5 of the most provocative, sexy, and/or weird films that will be screening this year. Enjoy!
A DOG BARKING AT THE MOON
A pregnant writer, Huang Xiaoyu (Gaowa Siqin), and her American husband (Thomas Fiquet) travel to China to visit her parents (Renhua Na and Wu Renyuan), whose marriage is ever on the brink of collapse. Her mom has seemingly been brainwashed by a cult, and her dad’s closeted homosexuality makes its way into the foreground. As the visit continues more family secrets come to light. A Dog Barking at the Moon is told through multiple storylines all weaving together and culminating in the present. Lisa Zi Xiang’s Teddy Jury award-winning directorial debut shines a light on religion, queerness and societal norms in China in the recent past and the present.
HOLY TRINITY
What do you get when you mix John Waters, The Sixth Sense, and BDSM? You could say you get a sort of trinity, well, you certainly get the movie Holy Trinity. Writer/director/star Molly Hewitt’s directorial debut follows queer dominatrix Trinity who sees and hears dead people after sniffing a magic aerosol. Set in an alternate-universe version of Chicago, Holy Trinity is an acid trip of kink and quirk from start to finish. If the truly outlandish is your cup of tea and you’re looking for a good time, then this sure looks like the movie for you.
LAST FERRY
If 2013’s erotic beach-cruising thriller Stranger by the Lake was your kind of film, then you’re going to want to check out Jaki Brdley’s Last Ferry. Young gay Lawyer Joseph (Ramon O. Torres) ventures to Fire Island for the first time to experience the cultural mecca. Showing up too early in the season however proves dangerous, his first night there he is drugged, mugged and witness to a murder on the beach. Things seem to get better when he is taken in by a group of friends, but when that group may include the murderer, Joseph doesn’t know who he can trust. If he isn’t careful, he just may get in bed with danger.
SEVENTEEN
In this Austrian coming-of-age (and sexuality) film, 17-year-old Paula (Elisabeth Wabitsch) is in love with her friend Charlotte (Anaelle Dézsy), who while also secretly reciprocating Paula’s feelings, is dating a boy named Michael (Leo Plankensteiner). To get her mind off Charlotte, Paula decides to start seeing Tim (Alexander Wychodil), a boy at her school who has feelings for her. Meanwhile, lonely classmate Lilli (Alexandra Schmidt) attempts to seduce Paula. Writer/director Monja Art’s film deals with the highs and lows of late adolescence and the tumultuous path to accepting oneself and one’s sexuality.
SIBERIA AND HIM
In Siberia, two men, Dima (Ilya Shubochkin) and Sasha (Viatcheslav Kopturevskiy), brothers-in-law, travel to visit Sasha’s sick grandmother in an incredibly remote Siberian town. What no one knows is that Dima and Sasha are lovers. Think God’s Own Country, but set in a police state, Viatcheslav Kopturevskiy’s Siberia and Him paints a bleak, yet cinematically beautiful, of repression, internalized homophobia and having to live your truth in secret in a country as cold emotionally as it is literally.
