A Queer Review of the Austin Film Festival (2023)
Highlighting the many ways in which AFF 2023 illustrated that the queer experience is not a monolithic one.

After causing a commotion with his last assignment, Falk has been given a desk job, which hardly agrees with his personality, and he ends up accepting an offer from an old friend to buy into a private investigation agency. Another friend of Falk's, Sven, purchased a business in Estonia, and when local gangsters attempted to pressure him into paying protection money, Sven retained the services of Nikolaus Lehmann, a burly private eye, to throw them off his trail. However, Lehmann does his job all too well, murdering the racketeers, and then threatening Sven and his family. With no where else to turn, Sven asks Falk to help him deal with the crazed Lehmann; Falk agrees, but soon realizes he's dealing with a more dangerous man than he imagined when Lehmann kidnaps Falk's wife Jeanette, and then releases her with a time bomb locked around her neck, demanding that Falk hand over ownership of his detective agency to Lehmann.
Highlighting the many ways in which AFF 2023 illustrated that the queer experience is not a monolithic one.
This coming-of-age movie discusses immigration issues in the United States through the eyes of two exchange students in Brazil.
"His Girl Friday" set the bar for romcoms and gave us a feminist heroine before feminism was cool.
The highly anticipated Marvel superhero movie of the year displays important themes of loss, loneliness, and change.
What are we willing to walk through to see our dreams come to pass? Our minds might be so wholly alive with the passions we carry and the plans we make to see these things become all we wish them to be, yet life doesn’t always want to come alongside. Instead, obstacles arise, both physical and mental, which attempt to dissuade us or even prevent us from moving forward, stalling or stagnating the momentum to achieve what we desire. The age-old question remains….can we overcome? Or will we BE overcome?
Black Christmas movies are few and far in between to find — so it is wonderful to see more representation on the screen just in time