Anyone who knows movies knows Cannes, the legendary film festival which debuts some of the most anticipated films of the year.
This year marks a new trend in the history of Cannes: it’s gone gay. A record-smashing 14 LGBT themed films, twice last year’s tally, showed at this year’s festival, just one year after the AIDS drama BPM won the Palm d’Or, the festival’s highest honor.
Cannes has long welcomed queer cinema among its official selections, but in recent years, the festival has taken steps to court more films featuring LGBT themes. 2010 saw the festival introduce the so-called “Queer Palm,” a special prize awarded to movies of the gay genre.
Related: This anticipated AIDS-crisis film inspired critics to openly weep at Cannes
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Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Past winners have included the Todd Haynes melodrama Carol and the erotic thriller Stranger By The Lake. Though acclaimed filmmakers like Haynes, John Cameron Mitchell (How to Talk to Girls at Parties), Steven Soderbergh (Beyond the Candelabra) and Damian Chazelle (Whiplash) have all had movies compete for the Queer Palm, never before has the field seen such wide or tough competition. Films competing for the Queer Palm also qualify for the prestigious Palm d’Or, one of the most coveted awards among filmmakers.
This year’s selections represent the growth of gay cinema on a worldwide scale, with the movies coming from nations as varied as Argentina, Kenya, Sweden and South Africa. Such growth should send some clear signals to Hollywood as well, where uneasy executives still take issue with gay characters in movies. They should also send a message to some of their home countries, where homosexuality is still stigmatized, or worse, declared illegal.
With all this foreign gay cinema fabulousness conquering Cannes, we’ve picked out six of our favorite titles we can’t wait to see. Pay attention, you’ll likely hear their names again come awards time.
1. The Angel
Based on the life of Argentine serial killer Carlos Puch, this thriller has already generated a good deal of buzz for the lead performance by newcomer Lorenzo Ferro. The film hints that Puch and his murdering accomplice, Ramon, killed because they were too timid to have sex with each other.
2. Border
A creepy lesbian love story from Swedish writer John Ajvide Lindqvist (Let the Right One In), this film centers on a lesbian customs official who might just be out of her mind…and imagining her lover. It’s that kind of movie.
3. Cassandro the Exotico!
This doc spotlights Cassandro, the champion drag queen wrestler. Please reread that sentence again. Why can’t we have that kind of wrestling stateside?
4. Rafiki
Not to be confused with the Lion King character of the same name, this Rafiki concerns two Kenyan women in love who reject cultural dictums demanding they marry men. Since Rafiki has already been banned in it’s native Kenya, you know its hit a nerve.
5. Girl
Remember the movie Billy Elliot? (See it if you haven’t.) This Belgian film takes the premise to a new level: a young girl dreams of becoming a prima ballerina, facing a tremendous obstacle: she’s born with the body of a male.
6. Sorry Angel
A middle-aged writer and single father falls for a young student in this French rom-com. Together, they form something of an ironic family, as the two men wonder how long their love can really last.
Kangol
Okay, so we’ve got
1) a film about repressed gay twink serial killers;
2) a film about a crazy lesbian who may be imagining her lover;
3) a film about a “drag queen” wrestler (who may or may not be gay/bi/trans);
4) a film about Kenyan women who become lovers and bravely defy local customs;
5) a film about a young trans ballerina;
6) a film about a white middle class father falling for a “young student.”
Really, only 1 of these, #4, Rafiki from Kenya, is not a stereotype and offers something fresh that we haven’t seen about LGBTQ people. Filmmakers can and should do better. Do they really not have any clue about the vast sea of non-stereotypical experiences LGBTQ people in Europe, North America and across the globe live? Are the studios pushing this crap? It’s like we’ve gone backwards since the 1980s, which is saying something.
jayceecook
“Really, only 1 of these, #4, Rafiki from Kenya, is not a stereotype and offers something fresh that we haven’t seen about LGBTQ people.”
1996 called and would like you to see a film called FIRE.
Donston
People constantly complain about stereotypes, and a lot of people don’t wish to confront the mental strife and illness of many “queer” people in real life. Yet, we still mostly see stories about “self-discovery”, archetypes, stereotypical and one-note romantic dynamics, a bunch of crazies and a lot of sentimentality. “Queer cinema” has yet to truly modernize or to deal with uncomfortable topics in straightforward, honest, non-pc ways. In some respects, I honestly believe things were more interesting in film 30 or 40 years ago.
On another note, Mulholland Dr. is possibly my favorite movie. So, I’m always here for “crazy lesbians”.
Kangol
@jayceecook, you show me a fictional feature film set in sub-Saharan Africa with *Rafiki* themes and plot and I’ll applaud you. Fire remains a rarity in Indian and global South cinema, so my point stands.
@Donston, I agree with all your points. I also love Mulholland Drive, which was a masterpiece involving, yes, a crazy lesbian. But what a story David Lynch created around her!
Donston
Sometimes I look at “straight movies” and go like, “Why can’t we get something this interesting or honest or truly subversive”? The last time I had that persistent feeling was when I watched Elle. Even a gay version of something like Lady Bird. Instead, we get the one-note romanticism and fantasy and sentimentality of Call Me By Your Name (which is a decent movie). Or how about more “queer movies” where orientation, sexual behavior and/or sense of gender isn’t at the center of the entire flick? The 70’s and 80’s were actually good for that.
Donston
Also, make no mistake, the entertainment industry over the whole world is still full of megalomaniacs, self-hating gays, hetero worshiping gays and general crazies. And it’s still ultimately about the bottom line. So, expecting much progress is expecting too much.
ErikAnderson
BPM didn’t win the Palme last year, it won the Grand Prix. The Square won the Palme.
surreal33
The gay community continues to be fed garbage films because we continue to accept the status quo, tired, narrative as gospel. Hence the top gay films of 2017 God’s own country, Beach Rats, Teenage kicks, all have common theme drugs, unsafe sex, self-loathing. Yet these films were promoted as the best of gay cinema. What does that say about gay men?
Donston
Call Me By Your Name was the top “gay movie” of 2017, both critically and box office wise.
The reality is is that “queers” are indeed more likely ratio-wise to suffer from depression, addiction, disabling anxiety, self-loathing, an oppressively convoluted and conflicted sense of self, self-destructive instincts, an inability to have fuctional and healthy romantic relationships, etc. And because so much of “gay culture” is driven by sex, drugs, partying and indulging narcissism it’s very easy to get caught up. These are realities. The problem is most movies that focus on those things tend to be “too careful”, ambiguous, grim, sensationalistic and/or awards bait-y. There’s also persistent obsession with youth and typical “self-discovery” narratives in “gay movies”.
Magiqua
Ummm, please enlighten me as to how the hell ‘Border’ is supposed to be a lesbian movie?
It’s basically about a mysterious woman with facial abnormalities and a superhuman sense of smell (which helps greatly in her job as a customs inspector). She has an inattentive boyfriend and one day meets a man coming through customs who shares her particular facial differences and they fall in love and have an affair.
I mean, I know that us lesbians get stuck with movies that 99.9999% of the time involve a ‘lesbian’ character sleeping with a man or having a boyfriend/husband/male in the mix, but come on!
Magiqua
Oh, and how on earth did ‘Disobedience’ not merit a mention on this list when a totally non lesbian/gay film does?
Donston
Disobedience did not show at Cannes this year.
Kangol
GLAAD clearly agrees with some of us, since it just gave Hollywood a “failing grade” for its poor representations of LGBTQ people. The Cannes films aren’t all from Hollywood, but they are par for the course, as the GLAAD report points out.