Writer/director Minhal Baig’s third feature film “We Grown Now” (Sony Pictures Classics) officially announces her arrival as an important filmmaker. While it’s a much smaller film than say “Moonlight” or “American Fiction,” it nevertheless is sensitive, insightful, and even if you’re grown, you will probably cry at the end.
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Originally scheduled to be released in autumn 2023, “Kiss Me Kosher” (Menemsha) was pulled from theaters in consideration of the horrific events that unfolded in early October 2023. Initially, the plan was to release “Kiss Me Kosher,” during “quieter times,” but perhaps in the spirit of possible (and wishful) reconciliation, it’s being given a second chance in the spring of 2024.
In “Silver Haze” (Darkstar), writer/director Sacha Polak has struck gold with queer actors Vicky Knight and Esmé Creed-Miles, both of whom she has worked on previous projects (“Dirty God” and “Hanna,” respectively). Loosely based on Knight’s life, “Silver Haze” is a difficult film to watch, but well worth sticking with until the very last scene.
Gay British filmmakers such as Andrew Haigh, writer/director of the acclaimed “All of Us Strangers,” have taken the art form in new and thrilling directions. You can now add the names Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping, the British co-writers/co-directors of the mind-blowing “Femme” (Utopia/BBC Films) to the list of filmmakers in the UK who, along with Haigh, are making indelible impressions in queer cinema.
Let’s be honest. Director Tom Gustafson, and his longtime writing partner Cory Krueckeberg, had one good movie in them: 2008’s “Were The World Mine.”
There is little doubt that 2023 was one of the queerest years on record when it comes to LGBTQ films, with Andrew Haigh’s dazzling “All of Us Strangers” receiving most of the praise and attention. With that in mind, 2024 has already gotten off to a good start, beginning with the recent release of the lesbian comedy “Drive-Away Dolls,” currently in theaters.
Said to be the first installment in a trilogy, “Drive-Away Dolls” (Focus), which was originally titled “Drive-Away Dykes” marks Ethan Coen’s solo narrative directorial debut. Co-written by Coen and his out lesbian wife Tricia Cooke (seriously, Google it), “Drive-Away Dolls” harkens back to early Coen brothers films “Blood Simple” (the violence) and “Raising Arizona” (the comedic, rapid-fire dialogue and situations). Additionally, there is the presence of queer characters, something the filmmakers dabbled with in “Miller’s Crossing,” “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” and especially “Hail, Caesar!”
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