NYC based LGBTQ+ film festival, NewFest, teamed up with Netflix to create the New Voices Filmmakers Grant. Four recipients, Blanche Akonchong, Livia Huang, Rodney Llaverias and Nyla Moon, were honored at Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn on October 17.
Winners of $25,000 each and a year of mentorship, the filmmakers gathered for a panel to discuss their films and journey’s thus far.
Blanche Akonchong directed “Mercury Afrograde,” a film depicting a family’s struggle when their secrets are revealed during mercury retrograde. “I edited it, colored it, I composed the music,” Akonchong told the Knockturnal. “I literally spent the whole first quarter of the pandemic just working on it. It was my catharsis.” The film received NewFest’s Emerging Black LGBTQ+ Director Award in 2020. Blanche is an actor, writer, director and musician who hails from Riverdale, Georgia with Cameroonian roots.
New York native filmmaker and actor, Nyla Moon, created “How Not to Date While Trans.” “I realized that there wasn’t a lot of stories by trans women about the trans experience,” Moon noted. “This is such a fun film and it’s like a love story to the trans community because everyone always talks about our experiences but they don’t listen to us, so I wanted to create this story so people could understand what it’s like actually dating as a trans person.” With this accomplishment, Moon continues to produce and act in more original works.
Working on the development of their first feature film while living between the Dominican Republic and Bogota, filmmaker Rodney Llaverias won the New Fest prize for “The Two-Headed Calf.” In the film, the protagonist comes to terms with their sexuality; a monumental event for most audiences don’t get to see from the queer point of view. “I really wanted to tell this story,” Llaverias admitted on the panel. “I had a very late flourishing when it came to my sexuality (…) I was really tapping into my past, my past traumas; I really wanted to talk about my relationship with my father and what that meant for me.”
“More Happiness,” by Livia Huang also explored parental relationships. “I think we all have evolving relationships with our mothers,” Huang said. “I just had these conversations that I couldn’t really let go of, and ‘More Happiness’ has this conversation with a real mother and daughter pair interspersed with the protagonist’s past memories about the past love affair with her ex girlfriend.” Huang, a Baltimore bred director, created the film as a thesis for Brooklyn College, two years ago.
Creating safe havens for queer communities since 1988, New Fest also dedicated the evening to celebrating thriving artists including Big Mouth’s Brandon Kyle Goodman, Wendell & Wild’s Sam Zelaya and Dead End: Paranormal Park’s; Zach Barack.
The Last Thing Mary Saw is an outstandingly haunting portrayal of a woman in 1843 New York who faces deadly (and supernatural) consequences for her affair with a maid. Stefanie Scott, who also stars in new Peacock series The Girl in the Woods, portrays Mary, who falls in love with Eleanor, played by Isabelle Fuhrman. Rory Culkin stars as a stranger who threatens to disrupt everything. Writer-director Edoardo Vitaletti was present at Brooklyn Horror Film Festival for the U.S. premiere. The film will be distributed by AMC+ and Shudder.
Family drama When I Consume You returned home to Brooklyn, where the film was shot, after premiering at Fantasia Film Festival earlier this year. Siblings Daphne (Libby Ewing) and Wilson Shaw (Evan Dumouchel) tackle their shared childhood traumas while warding off a demon stalker. Director Perry Blackshear told Variety that horror films are specifically designed to be watched in a dark theater: “It feels like when I watch a scary movie in the theater, it’s like going through a kind of timeless ritual where you die, you feel death,” Blackshear stated. “You get to undergo this intense pain and suffering and yet you survive, maybe stronger than when you began. This catharsis is my favorite part of the genre.”
Netflix’s Night Teeth was a crowd-pleaser with a sultry take on sexy vampires who secretly run L.A. We believe it! Debby Ryan and Lucy Fry play two BFFs who take driver Jorge Lendeborg Jr. on a very different type of ride. Megan Fox and Sydney Sweeney have memorable cameos as queen vampires, while Alfie Allen and Alexander Ludwig round out the urban undead underworld. BHFF hosted the world premiere of Night Teeth, now streaming.
The Home Invasion shorts programs featured a slew of standout films, but two especially caught the attention of BFHH audiences: Still Together and Hazel. Christopher Piazza’s Still Together is at once horrifyingly claustrophobic as well as hilarious. A department store window designer falls in love with a Nordic warrior trapped inside a mannequin. The couple try to plan their escape, but will the other employees thwart their happily ever after? A funky score and a bloody kicker prove we are Still thinking about this off-beat take on horror.
Hazel, directed by Jordan Doig, is a memorable portrayal of postpartum depression. New mom Libby struggles to take care of her daughter, Hazel, especially when her husband Pat isn’t supportive. Libby’s downfall into psychosis has a sinister turn, and you have to watch to see how this short film ends. The horror genre is best when its uncovering the real horrific moments of reality, and Hazel does just that.
“French cinema has always been part of Anderson’s artistic heritage and the acclaimed auteur has picked some of his favorite French films to be screened for FI:AF audiences,” the site reads. “The series coincides with the highly anticipated release of Anderson’s star-studded film, ‘The French Dispatch.'”
