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Along with the features, Outfest 2020 had a collection of short films. Each collection was a bundle of shorts connected by some common theme or aspect. Those themes or aspects included films about the LatinX experience or the transgender experience or the lesbian experience. There were at least eight collections by my count. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see all them. Of the ones I did see, there were some really compelling stories, as well as some frustrating ones. Query  by Sophie Kargman is arguably the most star-studded of all the short films in the festival this year. Two of the actors in it are veritable celebrities who have been in high-profile films. One of those celebrities is Armie Hammer who was in The Social Network  (2010) and Call Me By Your Name  (2017), one of the most well regarded, gay films of the past five years. Hammer has just a cameo in this short. The other celebrity who is more integral is Justice Smith who plays Jay, a young man who spends the whole day l

Travis Fine's latest film premiered at Outfest Los Angeles, the prominent LGBTQ film festival, as the Closing Night film. It follows Fine's previous film Any Day Now (2012), which won two awards at Outfest eight years ago. Fine is straight, but he made a pretty compelling story about a gay relationship. Fine has directed over a half-dozen films, but,  Any Day Now was probably his most successful, so he followed it up with another film dealing with same-sex relationships and gender identity. Instead of telling one story about those things, Fine tells three. It's a triptych, three separate pictures or three story lines that are seemingly connected. It could be compared in structure and editing to Steven Soderbergh's Traffic (2000) or Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel (2006), even though that film involved four story lines not necessarily told in linear fashion. I also got vibes that reminded me of the pilot episode of NBC's This Is Us (2016). I also got sli

Minyan is a term from Judaism. It comes from a Hebrew word, which means count or number. It refers to the fact that one needs a certain number of men for certain religious acts or observances, such as public prayer. The idea of minyan isn't one that isn't really used as a tool for the narrative. It's a bit of a plot device, but the title specifically comes from a line of dialogue toward the end where a rabbi says, "Thieves, adulterers, homosexuals, I take them all. Without them, we'd never have our minyan." It's a line of dialogue that's meant to underscore not only the idea of community but also acceptance and solidarity that one hopes would be inherent within any religious group. However, the test of that acceptance and solidarity takes a circuitous and nebulous route. Directed and co-written by Eric Steel, this film is based on a short story by David Bezmuzgis. It takes place in Brighton Beach in 1986. Brighton Beach is known for having the largest

It got nine nominations at the 39th Hong Kong Film Awards, which are Hong Kong's version of the Oscars. It got nine nods, including Best Film. It won two prizes, both for acting. It was written and directed by Ray Yeung. This is his third feature. It follows Front Cover (2016) and Cut Sleeve Boys (2007). Both films were predominantly English-language films. Front Cover was set in New York City and Cut Sleeve Boys took place in London. Yeung is from Hong Kong, which was a British colony, so he was able to study law in England. His previous films are probably reflective of his time there. However, this film is predominantly or exclusively in Cantonese. This is because the film is set exclusively in Hong Kong and as such he probably wants to reflect experiences that are exclusive to his home country. In an interview, Yeung said he read a book about gay men over the age of 60 in Hong Kong who were still in the closet. This film isn't an adaptation of that book, but it certainly

On January 24, 2018, a young African-American named Adam Ross was shot and killed in New Orleans. He was the brother to Big Freedia, a gay hip hop music artist. Big Freedia was born Freddie Ross, Jr. in 1978 and grew up on the streets of New Orleans and lived there all the way through Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Freedia is a gay man but prefers the pronouns "she" and "her." Freedia released her first album in 2003. The hurricane obviously put a damper on her career. She didn't start releasing music again until 2010. Her fierceness and success led to her getting her own TV show called Big Freedia: Queen of Bounce (2013). The title referred to the fact that she does bounce music, which is a form of hip hop, and her nickname for herself is "Queen Diva." That TV show ran for six seasons, ending in November 2017. Almost three months later, her brother would be shot and killed. This documentary, which would be made over the course of a year or so, culminatin

This is Ali LeRoi's debut feature. LeRoi though is 58-years-old. He has a 20-year career working in television for which he won an Emmy. He received that award for his work on The Chris Rock Show (1997). He then continued working with the famous comedian, mostly as a writer. LeRoi co-created Everybody Hates Chris (2005). The following year, LeRoi made the transition from writer to director. He proceeded to direct dozens of episodes of television. His most recent, major project was Survivor's Remorse (2015), a sitcom on Starz that was incredibly well done. Here, he takes the script of Stanley Kalu, a Nigerian immigrant who wrote this story in college as a teenager reflecting on all the things he was seeing and experiencing. Kalu's script is actually three things at once. It's a queer love story or queer coming-out story first. It's a Black Lives Matter movement story second. Except, it's not second. The Black Lives Matter story here is primal and just as funda

This film premiered at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, earlier this year, where it won the Teddy Award for best LGBTQ-themed feature film. The narrative focuses on three, young Persian immigrants who are now living in Germany. It's about the issues concerning young immigrants and the intersection of homosexuality in Persian culture. Given that Iran is a very homophobic country where gay people have absolutely no rights and can be punished by death, films about the subject by people in that country is impossible. Fictions like Circumstance  (2011) and documentaries like Alex & Ali  (2015) underscore why and how difficult it is for Iranians to be gay and how afraid a gay Iranian would feel. When it comes to Iranian immigrants, that fear in one way or another would also travel. Director and co-writer Faraz Shariat in his feature debut attempts to show various aspects of that fear or at least two different perspectives. Benny Radjaipour stars as Parvis Joon, a young ma

Writer-director Suzanne Guacci's film is about a medical aide, ostensibly a nurse. The title of this film is representative of that and is a medical term, specifically in relation to spinal cord injuries. It might be assumed then that this film concerns itself with someone who has such an injury, and that would be correct. This film has a young woman with a spinal cord injury at its center. The actress portraying this woman in a wheelchair doesn't need a wheelchair herself in real life, which could be a source of criticism. Other recent films about the disabled have been criticized for using able-body actors, but, it should be known that Guacci is a former New York State Trooper who lost her right leg in the line of duty in 2001 and has become an advocate of the disabled community, so casting aside, it's clear that her film comes from a place of compassion and understanding, as well as genuine insight that something like the recent Kevin Hart film, The Upside  (2017) might

Hong Khaou was nominated for a BAFTA Award for his film Lilting  (2014) , which was one of the best films of the year in my estimation. It made me eager to see the follow-up to his feature debut. Similar to his debut, this film's inciting incident is the death of the protagonist's loved one or family member. Similar to Lilting as well, this film is about that protagonist dealing with the loss and aftermath of that death. This film is inherently a different experience because Lilting was about how the protagonist had to engage with another person. This film isn't about how the protagonist has to engage with another person. It's more about how he has to reconcile the loss with the past and do it by himself. This is a much more lonely experience. Obviously, there have been a lot of great films about loneliness and lonely characters. Those films though give their lonely characters a lot more to do than Khaou gives his character here. It's easy when the lonely characte

Emma Seligman makes her feature debut, expanding her 2018 short film of the same name. In it, her female, Jewish, bisexual, Ben Braddock-like protagonist ends up spending the day at a funeral, which becomes a pressure cooker of awkward conversations and increasing tension of a couple of secrets being revealed and several lies being exposed. The majority of it though comes down to one secret in particular being revealed. That one secret might have been the entire hook to hang a short film, but it's not necessarily enough to hang an entire feature-length film. The premise of whether-or-not the secret will be revealed feels like a stretch and the tension seemingly escalates but at times feels repetitive. Rachel Sennott stars as Danielle, the girl in question. As mentioned, she's Jewish and bisexual. She's also a college student who feels shame from her parents and others that she's not on a professional track like doctor, lawyer or businessperson. She's more into art a