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 two years spent as a student in Boston, a 22-year-old visits his native Moldova. It is April 2009. People gather in the streets of Chisinau, the call having spread through social networking sites. They are demonstrating against the communist authorities who falsified the election results. They seize and plunder the parliament and presidential buildings. The demonstrators carry away documents, furniture and office equipment. Our protagonist is coming from a friend's home carrying his own computer monitor. He is mistaken for a demonstrator, brutally beaten up by the police and taken to the police station. His interrogator is an experienced major. The authorities can do anything. Based on real events, the film asks questions about freedom, justice and the price of human life.
Highlighting the many ways in which AFF 2023 illustrated that the queer experience is not a monolithic one.
Our trilogy at Seabrook High School starts with a rivalry between zombies and humans who eventually come together.
The Invitation takes a creeping look at two simple premises: reuniting with forgotten friends and new-age spiritualism. Though one seems a bit scarier than the other, the film heightens social awkwardness to a macabre level that puts an uncomfortable look on when the social taboo of grief is put on public display.
"13 Going on 30" tracks the tricky transition from adolescence to adulthood.
Written and directed by Eva Victor, who also plays Agnes, the main character, Sorry, Baby is slow and artsy, but extremely effective. It shows how the trauma developed after a sexual assault has a ripple effect and loudly echoes in the victim and her life for years after.
"Up" features one of Pixar's few Asian-American heroes and explores the institutionalized hardships elderly people face. Also, Dug is a good boy.