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.

In Pietro Mascagni's tragic opera, a soldier returns home from war to reclaim his former fiancée, only to find that she's married someone else in his absence, leading to jealousy, betrayal, and murder.
Highlighting the many ways in which AFF 2023 illustrated that the queer experience is not a monolithic one.
This film is a splendid mix of mediums, but its strength lies in its simplicity and beautiful message of closeness.
The differences in these films could not be more blatant, and yet Gus Van Sant has found a way to portray the same messages and use the same techniques in each.
A review of the Ryan Polomski documentary featuring the story of Basketball star Raymond Lewis.
The Bluff unravels its mystery slowly, opening on the capture of a ship captain named Bodden (Ismael Cruz Córdova) and the swift execution of his entire crew. Then, viewers are treated to a tranquil British settlement in the Cayman Islands in the 1850s, where a mother bakes a coconut birthday cake for her son in a house suspiciously rigged with makeshift tripwires and burglar alarms. As it turns out, that mother is Priyanka Chopra’s quick witted and resourceful ex-pirate Mrs. Ercell Bodden, and her husband’s captors are on the way to the island to hunt her down for abandoning them and stealing their loot. The pirates of the Libertas land on the beaches of Cayman Brac, and the scenes that follow show a Viking-esque slaughter of half the island.
Director Dana Ziyasheva made her directorial debut, 'Defenders of Life' which focuses on the Ngäbe community, and the hardships Ngäbe girls faced in Costa Rica.