The title of Héctor Gálvez’s second feature film refers to the shorthand used to designate unidentified bodies, in this case, the unclaimed remains of a man exhumed by a team of forensic pathologists in Peru.Team leader Fidel is intrigued by an unspoilt black and white photograph of a young woman found in the pocket of the shirt worn by the victim and sets out to uncover his identity. The (…) Continue Reading »

Brussels’ Anima Festival kicked off with a masterclass presented by Disney 3D animator Marlon Nowe. Nowe was one of the lead animators on Frozen (2013) and created the online animation school Animsquad. I have found that Frozen’s world of shifting polygons and sophisticated material simulations hold none of the beauty found in the pre-CGI, hand-drawn Disney features. Clearly, a lineage is (…) Continue Reading »

To celebrate the opening of Bertha Dochouse at the Curzon Bloomsbury we sat down with Elizabeth Wood to hear her thoughts on the history of Dochouse and the future of documentary. How was DocHouse started? I started the company 12 years ago. It was getting increasingly difficult to see good international documentaries on mainstream telly and no one was showing them in London cinemas at (…) Continue Reading »

In 1981 Vito Russo adapted his travelling lecture The Celluloid Closet into a book of the same name. The lecture and the book represent the first concerted effort to look at the history of cinema from a queer perspective. Years later the book was (…) Continue Reading »

Kaleem Aftab is a freelance journalist. He writes primarily for the Independent and is a contributing editor to Interview Magazine, film editor of VS Magazine and editor-at-large for www.the-talks.com. He also regularly contributes to Filmmaker, The National (UAE) and Indiewire. How did you became a film critic? Before I went to university to study law, I interned at the Morning Star in (…) Continue Reading »

Out To Win is a pumped-up documentary, primed to convince sports fans of the need to address homophobia within various games and to praise and support LGBT players brave enough to come out. Whether it converts non-believers into sports fans is another matter. I found the opening montage of out-and-proud athletes strutting their stuff (in a sporty way) to Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ to be rather (…) Continue Reading »

In a documentary with a deliberately suspect premise – one man seeks to de-gay his voice – that quickly gives way to a fun and enlightening delivery, David Thorpe uses voice as a hook to examine gay male identity – or is it gay? It turns out that 40% of male voices perceived to be gay belong to men who identify as straight and vice-versa. One explanation offered by one of the language experts (…) Continue Reading »

A film described as ‘unflinching’ is of course one that makes you flinch. The four shorts and one music video in BFI Flare’s ‘Dark Rivers of the Heart’ programme all deliver on those face-screwing, look-away-can’t-look-away moments. Kai Stänicke’s eye-catching promo for The Hidden Cameras’ Carpe Jugular features a sexually democratic dance floor where everyone gets off with each other, except (…) Continue Reading »

Whatever you do, you will always be some man’s bitch. This is an observation coolly relayed by a female character in Céline Sciamma’s five-act drama, set in the outskirts of present day Paris and centring on a sixteen year old girl. Every scene (…) Continue Reading »

BFI Flare: fiveFilms4freedom FiveFilms4freedom (say it ten times) is a showcase of short films selected from this year’s BFI Flare festival to be promoted by the British Council and hosted online via the BFI player. On Wednesday 25th March 2015 the two organisations are asking people from more than 50 countries and regions to participate in the simultaneous viewing of the programme. This (…) Continue Reading »