North America 2024 Archives - Page 3 of 3

National Anthem

21yo Dylan is a day laborer and a farm hand who works hard to support his family and be a father figure to his younger brother. Dylan is trying to keep on an appearance of stability but there’s something missing in his life. When he gets a temporary job on a communal queer ranch he feels that for the first time he belongs. He finds friends and falls in love. Sky (trans actress Eve Lindley) is a rodeo performer and the partner of the macho ranch owner Pepe. The two are happy to share their bodies with Dylan, but maybe it won’t be enough.
Charlie Plummer shines as the lead with a very natural, quiet and confident performance. Cinematographer Katelin Arizmendi re-imagines the coming-of-age movie against the stunning backdrop of New Mexico. Director Luke Gilford’s debut film is a hallelujah song to the ultimate queer American dream showcasing the real-life International Gay Rodeo Association.

Jennifer’s Body

Celebrating the 15 year anniversary to the Sapphic cult comedy-horror.
Before the screening, a short lecture by Gili Porat (podcast “TrashTalk”) on queer viewing of “Jennifer’s Body”.

After winning the Oscar for best original script for “Juno”, Diablo Cody wondered what would be her second Oscar-worthy movie? And thus we got “Jennifer’s Body” – a wonderfully bloody teen comedy that flopped in real time but rose to a cult film status over the years.
After a mysterious incident in the woods, the high school’s most popular student (Megan Fox) becomes very hungry. When male students start to disappear one after the other, her nerdy best friend Needy (Amanda Seyfried), who is having a rather unusual relationship with Jennifer, decides to put a stop to the massacre. Will she succeed?
Also, Chris Pratt is literally on fire in the film!

The movie is also available on Disney Plus

Ed Wood

Celebrating the 30th anniversary of Tim Burton film

The acclaimed film director Tim Burton brings life to the unbelievable story of the legend of trash cult films – Edward Wood, who is considered one of the worst filmmakers ever, brilliantly portrayed by Johnny Depp.

The film follows a time period of six years where we delve into Ed Wood’s personal life and his struggles to create one of his best known films, an autobiography named “Glen or Glenda” which depicts Wood’s personal fetish for women’s clothes. The film also follows Wood’s connection with Bela Lugosi, a horror films star in the 1930’s (Martin Landau in a breathtaking performance). Lugosi was most famous for his role of Dracula, but stopped working due to drug problems, and Ed Wood was the one who helped him get into rehab and make his last film “Plan 9 from Outer Space” which is considered to this day to be one of the worst films ever made.

Based (somewhat) on a book by Rudolph Gray Jr. ” Nightmare of Ecstasy: the Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr”

A must see film! Screening of a 35 mm copy.

The movie is also available on Disney Plus

The Eyes of Tammy Faye

For the first time on the big screen in Israel, “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”, the film that earned Jessica Chastain the Oscar for Best Leading Female.
The film is based on a documentary by the same name from the creators behind “RuPaul’s Drag Race”.

In a heartwarming performance, Jessica Chastain undergoes a full transformation and becomes Tammy Faye Bakker, an evangelist TV host that led for years an extravagant missionary talk show. A woman who built, alongside her husband Jim Bakker (Andrew Garfield) an empire that is worth millions of dollars. Tammy Faye was popular with her choices of colorful outfits and extreme make-up. While she soared in the Christians circles she became a laughing stock of late night talk shows and skits such as SNL, which turned her into a popular culture icon even for those who never saw her actual show.

Director Michael Showalter (“The Big Sick”) brings to the big screen an honest and merciful portrait of a woman, far from the caricature Tammy Faye had become. From her humble start as child, through the wedding her parents didn’t approve of, to the huge success and Jim’s conviction of fraud. Even though Tammy Faye was an evangelist Christian, she supported the LGBTQ community and was one of the first conservative Republicans to interview with compassion an AIDS patient during the height of the pandemic, a move that enraged a lot of her supporters as well as the evangelists leader, rev. Jerry Falwell.

Chastain is nothing short of amazing, stepping into Tammy Faye’s shoes. She manages to create a humane and colorful personality who always shows up in full make-up- ready to give a performance of a lifetime, even if the camera isn’t rolling.

The movie is also available on Disney Plus

Summer Qamp

“Summer Qamp” is a documentary following a group of young LGBTQ people in an idyllic summer camp by a lake in Alberta, Canada, where the young campers enjoy the traditional camp experience, but in a safe and accepting environment.
Camp fYrefly is stationed deep in a green forest and is a summer refuge for teens on the LGBTQ spectrum, far from a hostile environment, in a place where they can give fly to their queerness and their gender identity.
The film invites the viewers to meet the guides as well as the young campers, all of whom are willing to share the challenges they face and what had led them to this particular camp in remarkable and moving honesty.

In association with the Embassy of Canada