1. Hoje eu quero voltar sozinho (The Way He Looks) 2015 Brazil Dir. Daniel Ribeiro
Brazil’s official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film category for the 2015 Academy Awards, this dramatic romance stars Ghilherme Lobo as Leonardo, a blind teenager who wants to study abroad but has one big obstacle, his overprotective mother. When new kid Gabriel shows up at school, drawing the attraction of both he and his best girlfriend, Leonardo’s world is turned upside down. A jubilant portrait of young gay love, this assured debut feature tenderly parses the terrain of growing up different in more ways than one. The film won two major awards at the Berlin International Film Festival this year and has been screened across the world at a number of LGBT film festivals, including L.A. Outfest and the Lesbian and Gay Film Festivals in New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Toronto.
2. Las Herederas (The Heiresses) Bolivia 2018 Dir Marcelo Martinessi
Chela and Chiquita, a lesbian couple descended from wealthy families in Asunción, Paraguay, have been together for over 30 years. But recently, their financial situation has worsened and they begin selling off their inherited possessions. But when their debts lead to Chiquita being imprisoned on fraud charges, Chela is forced to face a new reality. Driving for the first time in years, she begins to provide a local taxi service to a group of elderly wealthy ladies. As Chela settles into her new life, she encounters the much younger Angy, forging a fresh and invigorating new connection. Chela finally begins to break out of her shell and engage with the world, embarking on her own personal, intimate revolution. Here's Chela, a woman watching her world get dismantled before her eyes, as paintings, silverware, and crystal glasses that have been in her family for years are assessed for their value. but lets it happen organically, as a messy conflation of circumstances and choices that add up to an unexpected sum. By the end of the film, the audience feels like it knows his heroine at almost precisely the same time she has gotten to know herself. It's a minor kind of magic. Quiet, slow burn what is unsaid is the most powerful.
3. CARMEN Y LOLA (Spain 2018) by Arantxa Echevarría
Spanish director Arantxa Echevarría disturbs the status quo with her opera prima about love between two teenage girls from a close- knit Roma Community in the Vallecas suburb of Madrid. Carmen lives in a Romani community in the suburbs of Madrid. Like every other woman she has ever met, she is destined to live a life that is repeated generation after generation: getting married and raising as many children as possible. But one day she meets Lola, an uncommon Romani woman who dreams about going to university and draws bird graffiti. Carmen quickly develops an understanding with Lola who's shy, independent and likes girls. They discover a world that, inevitably, leads them to be rejected by their families.
4. A Fantastic Woman (Chile 2017) Sebasián Lélio
With Daniela Vega and Francisco Reyes, Oscar winner for Foreign Language FIlm, this deeply moving film about love, sorrow and the resilience of the human spirit, will have you feeling like rushing into the film to help. Marina, a transgender woman who works as a waitress and moonlights as a nightclub singer, is bowled over by the death of her older boyfriend. Mourning the loss of the man she loved, she finds herself under intense scrutiny from those with no regard for her privacy.
5. Before Night Falls (2000, Cuba) Dir. Julian Schnabel
A richly imagined journey into the life and writings of brilliant Cuban author and exile Reinaldo Arenas. It spans the whole of Arenas' life, from his rural childhood and his early embrace of the Revolution to the persecution he would later experience as a writer and homosexual in Castro's Cuba; from his departure from Cuba in the Mariel Harbor exodus of 1980 to his exile and death in the United States. Javier Bardem was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He went on to win the Grand Jury Prize, Volpi Cup for Best Actor, Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead, National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor and National Board of Review Award for Best Actor.
6. Kiss of the Spider Woman (Argentina 1985) Dir Hector Babenco
Way ahead of its time when it was made, 'The Kiss of the Spider Woman' continues to draw public fascination. Based on the book by Argentine author Manuel Puig, which is even more remarkable for being written during the Argentine dictatorhsip, when the government was 'disappearing' gay people or anyone it didn't like. Set in a cell at the Villa Devoto prison in Buenos Aires in 1976, it shows the developing relationship of revolutionary Valentin Arregui Paz and his cellmate Luis Alberto Molina, a homosexual who has apparently been 'planted' to sniff out the secrets of Valentin's Marxist group. They argue. They fight. They fall in love. One betrays the other. Manuel Puig adapted his own 1976 novel while in exile in Mexico in 1983. By then he was already considered one of Argentina's most talented novelists, but because of his politics and homosexuality, he was forced into exile. The film, starring William Hurt and Raul Julia, won Hurt the Oscar for Best Actor. The film was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
7. SUBLIME (2022) Dir. by Mariano Baisin
Sixteen-year-old Manuel (Martín Miller) spends his days hanging out with his girlfriend and playing in a rock band with his childhood best friend (Teo Inama Chiabrando). But Manuel's latent feelings for Felipe come bubbling to the surface - could they be more than friends?
Will he take the plunge to discover whether the feelings are mutual or would he be risking their friendship? Mariano Biasin's acclaimed coming-of-age film is a celebration of young love and its innocent beauty.
This touching film tells the story of a long-standing friendship between two adolescent friends in a small coastal town. One of the two, Manuel puts the pair's solid bond, formed in childhood, to the test when he realises he wants something more from Felipe.
8. Marilyn’ (2018) by Martín Rodríguez Redondo
Set in rural Argentina, it is the powerful tale of a young man who dares to challenge the status quo and turns up at the carnival in his local town dressed as an attractive young woman called Marilyn. The other young men know who he is, but find they are both attracted and repelled by her. He pays the price but also finds a way of fighting back.Marilyn ( 2018) Argentina Martin Rodriguez Redondo
9. Inferninho ( 2018) My Private Hell by Guto Parente
My Own Private Hell / Inferninho( 2018) is an almost imaginary space, a bar in an unknown district in an unknown town. Perhaps next door. To a group of misfits, who cannot really survive out in the hard world, this Inferninho Bar is home.
10. La noche ( 2016) by Edgardo Castro Argentina
A ferociously honest film that explores Buenos Aires' sexual underworld, whose power lies in its humanity.
Documentaries, short films and UK made films also worth watching...
Antonio López 1970, Sex, Fashion & Disco' Dir: James Crump
An enchanting documentary about the Puerto Rican born fashion illustrator whose work in top fashion magazines such as Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Elle and The New York Times who was so well known and distinctive he signed his work simply as Antonio. Few documentaries can hold their own to the extent that they leave you wanting more. Director and writer James Crump has achieved this with his colourful, extravagant and intensely intimate portrait of Antonio López. He manages to portray him as a fashion artist, friend, companion, and lover with all the immensely complex relationships that he developed at all levels.
SHORT FILMS ‘Neptuno’, by Daniel Nolasco and 'Ursinho' by Stephane Olijnyk
Two SHORTS from the FLARE Film festival, both these films take us to slightly unusual places, where we do not normally go, they have a real tension. ‘Ursinho’ [Dir Stéphane Olijnyk], which is set in Rio de Janeiro. A young man working as a cleaner becomes obsessed with a very expensive Copacabana rent- boy. Favela resident Ursinho, an overweight mixed race 30 year old introvert, fantasizes about his dream Adonis: one of Copacabana's high end male prostitutes. Thirty-year-old Teddy Bear, an introverted mulatto who lives with his disabled father in a favela, drags his excess weight around like a burden. He likes to hang out in Point 202, a gay sauna in Rio where taxi boys strictly reserve themselves for wealthy clients. While cleaning the apartment of an elderly man in Copacabana, he discovers a beautiful young man who is fast asleep. He can't get the vision of this alabaster body out of his mind. Another worth-while short 'Neptuno' by Daniel Nolasco...see trailer below.
TWO films by Latino directors set in the UK
Disobedience (2018) Sebastian Lelio
When photographer Ronit Krushka returns from New York to London after many years, for her father’s funeral, a forbidden love that had been the cause of her departure is re-ignited with powerful consequences. In his film DISOBEDIENCE (2018), Chilean director Sebastian Lelio explores a love affair between Ronit Krushka (played by Rachel Weisz) and Esti Kuperman (Rachel McAdams) in a closely-knit Hassidic Community in North London.
Anchor & Hope ( Tierra Firme) (2017) DIR Carlos Marqués- Marcet
The film explores surrogacy, adoption, same-rex relationship and what it means to be a parent in a modern-day world. But this is no film flouting a ‘message’, there is a genuine freshness to the writing and the performances: Oona Chaplin (Game of Thrones) as Eva, Natalia Tena (Harry Potter/Game of Thrones) as Kat and the dashing David Verdaguer (Summer of 93) playing Roger, are all captivating. With Geraldine Chapin and Oona Chaplin Natalia Tena and David Verdaguer
