Sundance Film Festival held its third annual “Cheers, Queers” event on Jan. 23, presented in partnership with Acura and co-hosted by IMDbPro.
HBO Max’s Gossip Girl, a reboot of the classic mid-2000s teen drama, has already made bright stars of its cast and is enjoying strong support among fans after a celebrated first season. Now T’V’s favorite all-knowing, riddle-loving narrator (the talented Kristen Bell) returns for the second season, along with much of the cast.
In order to celebrate the premiere, Human By Orientation (HBO’s own LGBTQIA+ organization), and NYC’s legendary NewFest (the city’s preeminent queer film festival for over 35 years) traded the Upper East Side for Brooklyn to host a show-stopping advance screening at the Nighthawk Cinema in South Slope. Guests were treated to a pre-show drink and popcorn before having a chance to enjoy the first episode of the second season.
Throwing audiences directly into the magic and chaos of Gossip Girl’s world, the first episode is a brash and fast-moving dive into the rarified (and often, very white) world of debutante balls. Even without having seen the first season, character building is strong and addicting- you want to know everyone. While watching the first season can help enjoy the story more its not a requirement in order to enjoy the episode.
Just one episode will have you indulging in modern slang, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it jokes, and satisfying references to NYC life that are the definition of if you know, you know. It’s always nice to see your city celebrated on the big screen and NYC has always been a bit of a plot point for Gossip Girl, given some of its unique cultural norms and tendencies.
Particularly refreshing is how candid the show is about queer life, where all kinds of relationships are normalized in a healthy way rather than fetishized as rare phenomenons. For example, the topic of a three-way relationship is interesting not because of the arrangement itself, but because viewers are let in on the emotional struggle of the participants. It’s refreshing and serious, but playful and real: a complicated relationship handled with the humor and care.
A post-screening Q&A, moderated by Them editor Michael Cuby, featured Gossip Girl director Joshua Safran and cast members including Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock, Savannah Lee Smith, and Grace Duah (who nearly steals the entire first episode with her chameleon-like presence of comforting chaos). The Q&A revealed some clues about the next season, especially around how viewers will learn more about the families of many of the characters. We’re also introduced to a returning teacher who seems to be as meddling as Gossip Girl themself.
After the screening, guests and stars alike descended upon the cinema’s bar for a roaring afterparty featuring custom cocktails, a photo backdrop, passed snacks, and an absolutely blowout DJ set by Kenni Javon.
Gossip Girl Season 2 is now streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes weekly. Stream it here.
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.
Joel Edgerton, the conversion drama Boy Erased director/writer/star, talks about politics, choosing projects and more at NewFest
Starring Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, and many other talented stars, “Boy Erased” succeeds as a thriller about gay conversion therapy, but occasionally lacks the poignancy to back it up.
After Louie, a film centered on the evolution of the AIDS crisis in present day New York City, had its East Coast premiere as the centerpiece of the NewFest last weekend. The premiere was attended by a full cast and its director, Vincent Gagliostro, and sponsored by ACT UP New York (Aids Coalition to Unleash Power).
The film revolves around Sam Cooper (Alan Cumming), a middle-aged gay man, and his relationship with the much younger Braeden O’Reilly (Zachary Booth). Before the film, Gagliostro took to the microphone to thank his entire staff, from his makeup artist to his production assistants to his set designers, and conclude with a few words from LGBT activist and author Vito Russo, to whom the premiere was dedicated.
“Someday the AIDS crisis will be over,” Gagliostro quoted. “Remember that. And when that day comes — when that day has come and gone, there’ll be people alive on this earth — gay people and straight people, men and women, black and white, who will hear the story that once there was a terrible disease in this country and all over the world, and that a brave group of people stood up and fought and, in some cases, gave their lives, so that other people might live and be free.”
The cast of After Louie answering questions after the screening.
After the film, the cast was invited to the front of the theater for a panel question-and-answer session. An audience member asked Cumming how he dealt with taking his character into an “unlikeable zone.”
“As actors, we want people to like us, we just do,” Cumming said. “When you’re a performer, you’re used to trying to make your character appealing in some way, even if they’re a bad character. You want to find the good in them. It was quite hard for me to actually not be charming, to switch off that thing that I’m just used to doing. That’s another reason I said yes to play the part – because I usually playing evil people…charming in a way. But this was kind of someone who was so closed off. But he has a journey.”
In response to a question about the most effective comment he has ever received from an audience member, Gagliostro gave an anecdote about one of the first screenings in New Orleans, where he was approached by two transgender youth. “This film…is to give the younger people the freedom not to hold up these gold standards, and to kind of look into the issues that best concern them,” he said in regards to the classic ACT UP slogans.
“That was then, and this is now,” Gagliostro continued. “Now is very, very different. And maybe they’ll come up with a way to deal with the freak in the White House.”
Cumming, answering the same question, told of the After Louie screening in San Francisco. He had been seated on the aisle, far away from his mother and mother-in-law, to avoid awkwardness during the sex scenes. “But I was glad I sat on the aisle,” Cumming said. “At one point I looked over and there’s this man – older, gay man – weeping. Just weeping uncontrollably.Aand I just thought, this is what its all about. This is why you do films like this. This is why you’re an artist. Because you make people feel that they’re being heard. That their stories are being told.”