Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

The summary of the film said "An Indian father takes his transgender son on a road trip across South Africa to rescue his son’s long-lost mother from a rehab clinic"; which, as you can imagine peaked my interest. And of course since I have lived in South Africa for a couple of years, naturally I wanted to feel close to the country and the people again. This film is truly queer in every sense and while watching the film and even after, I realized that there are so many nuances to everything in life that sometimes we tale for granted and its the people who are dealing with it will ever know for sure. India origin tailor Tarun used to be a scammer forging papers in his early life but that's all now past him. HIs trans son River has ambitious plans for himself. He wants to enter a drag competition to use the money form the winnings to get his top surgery. An unexpected call from Monica, River's long lost mother who abandoned the kid when he was 1 year old needs rescuing f...

The film, inspired by true incidents, is based on an early 18th century court record from Cape Town, exploring the romantic relationship between two male prisoners, one black and one Dutch, at Robben Island in South Africa in the 18th century. I am guessing most of the story is fictionalized version put together around the historical court hearing that happened in 1735. Trying to Steal cattle, a local black man Claas Blank is arrested and shipped for 10 years imprisonment in Robben Island. Being a servant before, he is able to speak good English as well along with Dutch. The black and white inmates keep themselves separate and Blank is too to stay away from a white Dutch sailor inmate Jacobsz, who is a 'faggot'. When an English botanist Niven stations himself on the island to develop exportable flower strains, Blank's sills help him find favors with him. Both Blank and Jacobsz are drafted to help with Niven’s project and they end up spending unsupervised time together which...

The film is set in 1845/85 apartheid regime in South Africa, this film chronicles experiences and learnings of a conflicted gay teen from small-town South Africa who serves in the military in 1985 with unique and life-changing results, which gives the viewer a very  rich, poignant and finely observed musical-drama. For a person who is not into musicals, the 4-5 songs in this film made sense and totally fit into the movie. This is not a true blue musical though, if thats what you are expecting. A lanky teenager has grown up in a rural town where most people expect him to be the weird gay boy. Called up for military service, Johan is fortunate to be accepted into the 23-member Defense Force Church Choir, aka the Kanaries, where he finds kindred spirits as well as standard-issue bullies and bigots. He meets effeminate Ludolf, for whom ehe eventually gets a liking and become good friends with. Johan continues to keep up his macho personality for fear of being bullied because of his sex...

Moffie, is apparently the gay slang in Afrikaans for faggot, which means if said out loud, it really really hurts like a bullet. This film had a very interesting plot. It is set in 1981, when there was long running war at South African border spun by the Apartheid government as a mission of anti-communist protection. With the backdrop of war, what the film tries to explore is the violent homophobia prevalent in the country’s heavily patriarchal white Afrikaans population. 18 year old shy Nicholas is drafted for compulsory military service and his family is throwing him a send off party. His father gives him a porn magazine as "ammunition" to keep with him. Of course, when he reaches the camp, he is headthrown into the shouting, fighting, swearing world of military and all the new recruits playing roughly at manhood. We notice Nicholas is trying to hide something, from others and possibly even from himself. The training of the boys begin which is a literal assault course ...

This film was probably not an easy film to make and I can only imagine what it would have taken to get it a proper release at least in South Africa. The subject is controversial and deeply personal to the rituals of a tribe. You can never know how much of truth is gonna be in there vs how much content was added to make the film controversial. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful piece of cinema, something very different that we have been used to seeing. Xolani is an isolated factory worker. He takes a break from work to go into the mountains to mentor a city boy for his initiation. Initiation is the act of circumcision thereby welcoming the boys to manhood. This young boy is Kwanda, and Xolani is chosen as a caregiver for him because he has the temperament to deal with “city initiates”, known to be “softer” than their country counterparts. Kwanda is a rebel, who questions age old customs and the gathering of men. The initiation is also an opportunity for Xolani to meet up with his long...

When the film started, it felt different; good different. I had the same feeling for almost half point of the movie, despite the fact that the movie was paced very very slow. Each scene lingered 10-15 seconds longer than necessary. Sometimes less is more, and certainly in this case I felt that throughout the film. Had it been better edited, it could have built the tension more effectively in a decent 60-minute film. Francois is a 40-something man living a unhappy married life. He sees Christian, a close friend's son, at his daughter's wedding and gets totally obsessed with him. We soon realize that Francois is a closet homosexual case. In a very small community of people, who belongs to a very very small group os closet gays who meet once in a while to fulfill their desires. Francois tries to control his obsession as much as he can but he finally gives up. He travels to Cape Town from his village to do something about this, hoping that Christian will have the same feelings ...

I am so glad I saw this film. I am not a big fan of films based on lesbian theme but I had to definitely watch this one because of the fact that it had Indian actors and somehow the synopsis sounded interesting. And true to all of these things, this film turned out to be my favorite among all the films that I saw in the festival. The fim is set in South Africa in 50s when apartheid was at its peak. The story primarily revolve around an Indian family. Omar is married to Miriam. They move from Cape Town to suburbs because situation is not very good in the city because of discrimination and other things. Omar is not he best husband. He is cheating on Miriam with his brother's wife and Miriam knows it but doesn't do anything about it. They have 3 kids. Miriam is silently observing and accepting everything. On the other hand we have Amina, another Indian girl who i a trend setter. She wears pants, runs a cafe with black and indian people an raises her voice for injustice. She is h...