May 20
Tune In to Criterion Channel's TWO Queer Pride Month Lineups
Kilian Melloy READ TIME: 2 MIN.
Get ready for a wealth of top-shelf queer movies on the Criterion Channel throughout June: The streamer has curated not one, but two Pride-worthy programs, both of which are described on Criterion's website. Included are salutes to filmmakers Ingrid Bergman and Paul Schrader, along with a clutch of films put together for their synth-driven scores, rediscovered gems, and more.
"Queersighted: The Queer and Now" lines up seven features and two shorts, including the queer classic "Weekend" (2011) from "All of Us Strangers" writer-director Andrew Haigh, Argentine filmmaker Lucio Castro's moving and romantic "End of the Century" (2019), Isabel Sandoval's trans drama "Lingua Franca" (2019), Benjamin Crotty's queer drama "Fort Buchanan" (2014), Laura Citarella's mystery "Trenque Lauquen" (2022), and "If from Every Tongue It Drips," Sharlene Bamboat's 2021 drama centering on a Sri Lankan lesbian couple.
"In this latest edition of Queersighted, series curator Michael Koresky and his special guest Dennis Lim (artistic director of the New York Film Festival) sit down to discuss a selection of titles from the 2010s and '20s that both stretch and elucidate the meaning of queerness on-screen," the Criterion site explains.
"These are sense-heightening films whose radical approaches to cinematic narrative, form, and character speak to the shifting boundaries of our experience."
The two accompanying shorts are Vado Vergara's "Flores" (2017) and "Parsi" (2018), which showed at the Tate Modern and which the museum described as "an award-winning short film by Argentine filmmaker Eduardo 'Teddy' Williams and poet Mariano Blatt" that was filmed with a 360-degree camera.
Criterion's other Pride month celebration is the 20-feature slate labeled "LGBTQ+ Favorites," which boasts a number of classic documentaries – "Paris is Burning" (1990), "The Times of Harvey Milk" (1984), "Stories from the Quilt" (1989) – as well as early queer narrative classics like Fassbinder's stylized queer sailor noir "Querelle" (1982), Donna Deitch's 1959-set lesbian romantic drama "Desert Hearts" (1985), Jim Fall's gay rom-com "Trick" (1999), Derek Jarman's "Jubilee" (1978), and Gus Van Sant's debut "Mala Noche" (1985).
"Proud, rebellious, colorful, intimate, and frank, these visions of LGBTQ+ life include beloved modern classics as well as hidden gems," Criterion promises of the lineup, before adding: "these films represent just a sample of the wide world of queer cinema, but they offer a taste of its breadth, creativity, and defiance in the face of adversity."
Will you be tuning in?
Kilian Melloy serves as EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor. His professional memberships include the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and the Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee.
