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.

American tourist Frank meets mysterious British woman Elise on the train to Venice. Romance seems to bud, but there's more to her than meets the eye.
Highlighting the many ways in which AFF 2023 illustrated that the queer experience is not a monolithic one.
A trouble-making teenager spends the summer working at a Southern California beach learning about responsibility.
That gut-wrenching feeling you have while watching it is okay but needed, and you, the viewer, will be okay.
Like all modern societal phenomenons, it started with a meme. This one highlighted that when there’s a mom in a Pixar film, she is almost without fail given striking curves that highlight the bottom half of her body following a minuscule waist. From Elastigirl to the skeletal Mama Imelda, the animation giant’s artists seem to have a fixation on making exaggeratedly curvy maternal characters.
My Beautiful Laundrette is often referenced as a positive LGBTQIA+ film because our two main characters are in a homosexual relationship with no shame, fear of violence or criticism. The struggle is not their sexuality. It is the treatment of the Pakistani citizens in England.
Netflix's Afterlife of the Party might fall into the rom-com genre, but it's much more about grief, strong female friendships, and platonic love than it is about romance.