Horny, Frustrated, Joyous: Best of Queer Shorts at Anima 2025
ANIMA 2025: We take a look at three highlights from this Brussels festival for animated films, which have all been critically acclaimed to date—for good reason.
Entrusting a Legacy: The Politics of Remembrance in Cristina Costantini’s ‘Sally’
SXSW 2025: We explore how a new documentary about astronaut Sally Ride opens up a vital realm of questions around the remembrance of LGBTQIA+ individuals in the public consciousness after their passing.
Sex Work, Yassified but Empowered – ‘Fucktoys’ (2025) by Annapurna Sriram
SXSW 2025: In her self-described “bubblegum grindhouse” feature, the Nashville-born actor turned writer-director creates a stylistically compelling, even if at times slightly too plotless, sex work-cum-road movie comedy.
‘We’re going to talk about being gay; we’re going to talk about relationships, sex, everything’: Marco Berger on ‘The Astronaut Lovers’
BFI FLARE 2025: The Argentinian writer-director takes us into the ideas behind his latest feature, including his desire to make a film inspired by the traditions of classic romantic comedies and composing each shot like a painting.
Love in the Age of Instant Gratification – ‘I Really Love My Husband’ (2025) by GG Hawkins
SXSW 2025: With her feature debut about a couple on their emotionally shaky honeymoon, GG Hawkins interrogates a contemporary feeling of social malaise where we simply don’t know how to be alone.
‘I wanted to make something gentle about queer people’: Géraldine Charpentier on ‘Messages personnels’
ANIMA 2025: The Brussels-based animator talks us through their newest short film, which brings to the screen “a little dyke story in [their] own city” inspired by the art style of cartoonists like Alison Bechdel.
The Act of Queerness: Notes on the 75th Berlinale
BERLINALE 2025: LGBTQIA+ films at the festival’s 75th edition showed a refreshing tendency toward celebrating the experience of queerness rather than solely the identity within.
Unapologetically Out in Space – ‘Lesbian Space Princess’ (2024) by Leela Varghese and Emma Hough Hobbs
BERLINALE 2025: The Australian animated feature isn’t the radical, anarchic queer middle-finger to the heteropatriarchy that it claims to be, but it is an eager, honest effort by these first-time feature directors.
What We Perform in the Shadows – ‘Night Stage’ (2025, ‘Ato Noturno’) by Marcio Reolon and Filipe Matzembacher
BERLINALE 2025: The Teddy Award-winning Brazilian filmmaking duo returns to the festival with an erotic but not-so-thrilling melodrama where the film’s lighting ultimately steals the spotlight.
‘There is a difference between longing and reality’: Jun Li and Jayden Cheung on ‘Queerpanorama’
BERLINALE 2025: The writer-director and lead actor talk connection in an estranging world, staging intimate scenes, and creating harmonious visuals on a low budget.