![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aquila1nzNZIFF is never the best way to get my lesbian representation fix, usually there's only a couple of films that qualify and they tend to be serious and sad, which yeah, that's the queer cinema I grew up with but I always hope for more. Times like these I really do miss the Outtakes Film Festival for supplying a wider range of international queer films than the more mainstream festival can manage (even as I live in a streaming media era with more queer content than I can possibly keep up with). And we'll not mention the recent year I didn't get to see, that had an actual strand labelled Proud that was almost entirely white male gay (though it looked like there was a wider range of films tagged LGBTQIA+).
But having said that, it turned out there was a whole lot of content lurking in this year's programme, you just had to be able to find it, and I didn't even make it to everything that was labelled!
Starting with the films tagged as LGBTQIA+, there were 12, I think 4-6 may have had wlw characters.
There's nothing in the festival blurb for Cuckoo that says what the queer content is, but I found another review online that says there's a small f/f subplot for the main character. Unfortunately I ended up not being able to make the Cuckoo screening time.
Good One is about a teenage girl going on a several day hike with her father and one of his friends. She is queer and we see her girlfriend at the start of the film, it gets discussed at least once and we see their texts and video calls. A good and interesting film about parents and disappointment.
I Saw the TV Glow is doing a lot of things. It captures exactly being a teenager obsessed with a tv show in the 90s - the show within a show is pitch perfect right down to the 90s special effects. It's steeped in the tropes and imagery of horror, but the actual horror it manifests is solely existential. It's a portal fantasy about refusing the call. And it's a closeted trans not-so-allegory. The NZIFF blurb mentions the trans focus, but you wouldn't know that the other main character is a lesbian. Great film, go see it.
A Mistake is about a top-level surgeon at an Auckland hospital dealing with the repercussions of something going wrong during a surgery. I presumed this would be lesbian when I bought the ticket, but I was also very interested in the subject, so had forgotten by the time I went to the film, making for a nice surprise from past me. She has a girlfriend who also works at the hospital, which takes its toll on their relationship. I gather (was listening to other audience members as I left the Civic) that the director, Christine Jeffs, may have given the film character more of a character journey than the book did (but I haven't read it). Would recommend.
If there were more sapphic characters lurking in the remaining LGBTQIA+ films, I remain unaware.
On to the other films I saw:
Opening night was Josephine Stewart Te Whiu's We Were Dangerous about 1950s teenage girls shipped off to a reformation school on an island near Christchurch. While none of the blurbs and pre-festival PR I saw mentioned lesbians I was hopeful, (and not just because I looked at pictures of the director and googled further - she also co-wrote and directed my favorite section of the ensemble film Waru), but 'delinquent' girls, that's one step down from women's prison dramas, which always deliver! And it stars Erana James, who played Toni in The Wilds. Sure enough one of the girls - the only middle class white girl - has been sent there by her parents for her relationship with another girl. There's no subsequent romance in the film, just great friendships building to an energising ending. A great first night film!
When The Light Breaks is an Icelandic film about grief, Una has just started a relationship with a fellow student who dies suddenly in an accident before he can break up with his long distance girlfriend. The film covers 24 hours of his friends dealing with what has happened. I'll admit I bought a ticket because Icelandic films are always great but also for the picture of Una in the film booklet, and her short slicked back hair and mode of dress in the film did have me going "this is wasted on guys", so when the previous girlfriend says "I was worried about my boyfriend being in a band with you, but he said you were a lesbian so I stopped worrying" and Una said "I'm not lesbian, I'm pan", well I remembered I was in a full theatre and didn't cheer, but. It's a beautiful film.
I really wanted The Beast, a science fiction cum horror that expands on a Henry James story, to be gay because the present section has Léa Seydoux driving around LA in a red mustang wearing a dark waistcoat, white tshirt and jeans combo that pings. And she does get kissed by a female presenting android in the future section, so yay, that totally counts.
Janet Planet about 11 year old Lacy's altering relationship with her single mother in backwoods 90s Massachusetts is structured around the coming and going of three of her mother's relationships, two boyfriends and in between a rekindled friendship with Regina played by Sophie Okonedo - so I was disappointed that that relationship was not gay! Instead it just makes it into the review because at one point Lacey asks her mother if it would be OK if she turned out to like girls.
Everything in the NZ Best short films programme was fantastic, in some very different ways. Rochelle is about a young man buying a car with a painful history so he can enter it in a demolition derby. Roxie Mohebbi (who played Samira on Shortland Street) is the lesbian mechanic who works on the car. This is a very funny and sweet story, uplifted by the great performances.
Honourary mentions of films with no female queer content that nevertheless delighted my fannish heart:
Gloria has lots of great female interaction if you want to hang some subtext up to admire. About young women in an 1800 Venice orphanage who have been rigorously trained in music, this had so much plot and life and was all around lovely.
On the other end of the spectrum Tatami, about an Iranian judo fighter going to the world championships in Tiblisi felt like it might be going down a queer path but didn't, instead it's an extremely powerful political sports movie. Full on, and anchored by Arienne Mandi who apparently played Dani Núñez on L Word Generation Q? and with Jaime Ray Newman in a supporting role which hit my Stargate Atlantis rarepair feels.
The documentary Lucy Lawless directed Never Look Away is about a kick arse woman and it's really well done, providing no judgement on a very remarkable life. I'm glad I got to see the Q & A. Worth the watch.
And The Remarkable Life of Ibelin is one that will really move all long time online fans. We see the life of Mats, who dies at age 25 from Duchenne's, from the outside through home videos and his family's loving stories, and then, in an impressive recontextualisation of his life we are given access to his inner world, the relationships he built in a World of Warcraft guild, brought to life by animators using chat logs, character builds and interviews with the friends who never got to meet him in person. It will be on Netflix soon, tissues advised.
Full list of films mentioned below the cuts:
Cuckoo
Good One
I Saw the TV Glow
A Mistake
We Were Dangerous
When the Light Breaks
The Beast
Janet Planet
NZ Best - Rochelle
Gloria
Tatami
Never look Away
The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
The full list of films I saw is at https://www.nziff.co.nz/s/34cA
But having said that, it turned out there was a whole lot of content lurking in this year's programme, you just had to be able to find it, and I didn't even make it to everything that was labelled!
Starting with the films tagged as LGBTQIA+, there were 12, I think 4-6 may have had wlw characters.
There's nothing in the festival blurb for Cuckoo that says what the queer content is, but I found another review online that says there's a small f/f subplot for the main character. Unfortunately I ended up not being able to make the Cuckoo screening time.
Good One is about a teenage girl going on a several day hike with her father and one of his friends. She is queer and we see her girlfriend at the start of the film, it gets discussed at least once and we see their texts and video calls. A good and interesting film about parents and disappointment.
I Saw the TV Glow is doing a lot of things. It captures exactly being a teenager obsessed with a tv show in the 90s - the show within a show is pitch perfect right down to the 90s special effects. It's steeped in the tropes and imagery of horror, but the actual horror it manifests is solely existential. It's a portal fantasy about refusing the call. And it's a closeted trans not-so-allegory. The NZIFF blurb mentions the trans focus, but you wouldn't know that the other main character is a lesbian. Great film, go see it.
A Mistake is about a top-level surgeon at an Auckland hospital dealing with the repercussions of something going wrong during a surgery. I presumed this would be lesbian when I bought the ticket, but I was also very interested in the subject, so had forgotten by the time I went to the film, making for a nice surprise from past me. She has a girlfriend who also works at the hospital, which takes its toll on their relationship. I gather (was listening to other audience members as I left the Civic) that the director, Christine Jeffs, may have given the film character more of a character journey than the book did (but I haven't read it). Would recommend.
If there were more sapphic characters lurking in the remaining LGBTQIA+ films, I remain unaware.
On to the other films I saw:
Opening night was Josephine Stewart Te Whiu's We Were Dangerous about 1950s teenage girls shipped off to a reformation school on an island near Christchurch. While none of the blurbs and pre-festival PR I saw mentioned lesbians I was hopeful, (and not just because I looked at pictures of the director and googled further - she also co-wrote and directed my favorite section of the ensemble film Waru), but 'delinquent' girls, that's one step down from women's prison dramas, which always deliver! And it stars Erana James, who played Toni in The Wilds. Sure enough one of the girls - the only middle class white girl - has been sent there by her parents for her relationship with another girl. There's no subsequent romance in the film, just great friendships building to an energising ending. A great first night film!
When The Light Breaks is an Icelandic film about grief, Una has just started a relationship with a fellow student who dies suddenly in an accident before he can break up with his long distance girlfriend. The film covers 24 hours of his friends dealing with what has happened. I'll admit I bought a ticket because Icelandic films are always great but also for the picture of Una in the film booklet, and her short slicked back hair and mode of dress in the film did have me going "this is wasted on guys", so when the previous girlfriend says "I was worried about my boyfriend being in a band with you, but he said you were a lesbian so I stopped worrying" and Una said "I'm not lesbian, I'm pan", well I remembered I was in a full theatre and didn't cheer, but. It's a beautiful film.
I really wanted The Beast, a science fiction cum horror that expands on a Henry James story, to be gay because the present section has Léa Seydoux driving around LA in a red mustang wearing a dark waistcoat, white tshirt and jeans combo that pings. And she does get kissed by a female presenting android in the future section, so yay, that totally counts.
Janet Planet about 11 year old Lacy's altering relationship with her single mother in backwoods 90s Massachusetts is structured around the coming and going of three of her mother's relationships, two boyfriends and in between a rekindled friendship with Regina played by Sophie Okonedo - so I was disappointed that that relationship was not gay! Instead it just makes it into the review because at one point Lacey asks her mother if it would be OK if she turned out to like girls.
Everything in the NZ Best short films programme was fantastic, in some very different ways. Rochelle is about a young man buying a car with a painful history so he can enter it in a demolition derby. Roxie Mohebbi (who played Samira on Shortland Street) is the lesbian mechanic who works on the car. This is a very funny and sweet story, uplifted by the great performances.
Honourary mentions of films with no female queer content that nevertheless delighted my fannish heart:
Gloria has lots of great female interaction if you want to hang some subtext up to admire. About young women in an 1800 Venice orphanage who have been rigorously trained in music, this had so much plot and life and was all around lovely.
On the other end of the spectrum Tatami, about an Iranian judo fighter going to the world championships in Tiblisi felt like it might be going down a queer path but didn't, instead it's an extremely powerful political sports movie. Full on, and anchored by Arienne Mandi who apparently played Dani Núñez on L Word Generation Q? and with Jaime Ray Newman in a supporting role which hit my Stargate Atlantis rarepair feels.
The documentary Lucy Lawless directed Never Look Away is about a kick arse woman and it's really well done, providing no judgement on a very remarkable life. I'm glad I got to see the Q & A. Worth the watch.
And The Remarkable Life of Ibelin is one that will really move all long time online fans. We see the life of Mats, who dies at age 25 from Duchenne's, from the outside through home videos and his family's loving stories, and then, in an impressive recontextualisation of his life we are given access to his inner world, the relationships he built in a World of Warcraft guild, brought to life by animators using chat logs, character builds and interviews with the friends who never got to meet him in person. It will be on Netflix soon, tissues advised.
Full list of films mentioned below the cuts:
Cuckoo
Good One
I Saw the TV Glow
A Mistake
We Were Dangerous
When the Light Breaks
The Beast
Janet Planet
NZ Best - Rochelle
Gloria
Tatami
Never look Away
The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
The full list of films I saw is at https://www.nziff.co.nz/s/34cA
