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 the 1960s, about 3,000 Chinese orphans were sent to Inner Mongolia. In the Xilingol grassland, Qiqigema Erji adopted Chen Chen and Yu Sheng even though her husband disapproved. The children grew up as Mongolian nomads. But 20 years later, upon hearing the news that biological parents were looking for their children, Chen Chen left for Shanghai in the hope of meeting his parents. Yu Sheng finally did meet his parents and faced a choice as to where he wanted to live.
Highlighting the many ways in which AFF 2023 illustrated that the queer experience is not a monolithic one.
Featured in Incluvie’s 2020 Film Festival, Kung Fu Chit tells the story of a girl who doesn’t quite fit in.
Netflix's new thriller Apex, starring Charlize Theron, puts a twist on survival horror. Despite its setting in the beautiful- yet-dangerous Australian wilderness, Apex is not a movie about man vs. nature. Instead, it’s woman vs. man. While checking out the title card and its unpretentious Netflix release might lead viewers to believe Apex is just another celebrity project churned out of the streaming machine, Apex - whether by luck or by intention - is a consistently harrowing film about the reality of being a woman in a public space.
The Slumber Party Massacre wonderfully combines the suspense of its horror with its commentary on gender, creating a memorable slasher classic that began a horror trilogy entirely written and directed by women.
Ruben Östlund muses about his characters, “As soon as you get close to a person, you see them as just another human being”. It is widely recognized that aboard the luxury yacht in ‘Triangle of Sadness’, the different groups of people represent a small society as a commentary on classism and gender binaries.
‘Run Sweetheart Run’ has everything women fear the most, from psycho boyfriends to tampons.