The 2026 New York Film Festival: Exploring a queer past and present
In an interview with The Film Stage, New York Film Festival programmer Dennis Lim said, “I think the state of the world is oppressively horrible right now. I just don’t know who would dispute that. So of course I think interesting filmmakers will want to tackle that.” Out of the festival entries I’ve seen, the … Read More
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In an interview with The Film Stage, New York Film Festival programmer Dennis Lim said, “I think the state of the world is oppressively horrible right now. I just don’t know who would dispute that. So of course I think interesting filmmakers will want to tackle that.” Out of the festival entries I’ve seen, the documentaries “NAZA” and ‘My Undesirable Friends Part II: Exile” zoom in on some of the key tragedies of this historical period: the war in Ukraine, authoritarian attacks on the media, Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Against these films’ urgency, some of the remainder of the festival, including films by LGBTQ directors, felt timid and complacent.
Regardless, this year’s festival is stocked with work by gay men: Andrew Haigh, Ira Sachs, Luca Guadagnino, Jordan Firstman, Pedro Almodovar, and Albert Serra. Beyond them, Sandra Huller’s “Rose” and Arthur Harari’s “The Unknown” function as trans allegories. Marline Atlan’s “La Gradiva” follows a gay French teenager’s trip to Italy, while Isabelle Stever’s “I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming” envisions a queer Ukrainian couple struggling to remain together after one partner gets drafted. Chuko Esiri and Arie Esiri’s “Clarissa” transplants Virginia Woolf’s novel “Mrs. Dalloway” to Lagos, Nigeria, where the title character comes to term with her lifelong attraction to another woman. The “Revivals” sidebar includes lesbian director Barbara Hammer’s 1992 documentary “Nitrate Kisses.”
Haigh’s “A Long Winter,” adapted from gay author Colm Toibin’s novella, goes down two converging roads: a gay coming-of-age tale and the mystery of a woman’s disappearance. Louise (Caitrona Balfe) squirms under her domineering husband Lester (Eban Moss-Bachrach). While apparently upbeat, she drinks heavily to cope with the pain and boredom of a life trapped in the rural Rocky Mountains. Their younger son Tom (out bi actor Kit Connor) has escaped the family by joining the Army; Mikey (Fred Hechinger), who’s starting to come to terms with his attraction to men, remains behind. Following a nasty argument, Louise walks away into the woods, where a blizzard’s about to hit.
[caption id="attachment_65165" align="aligncenter" width="700"]
"A Long Winter" was adapted from gay author Colm Toibin's novella.MUBI[/caption]
Moss-Bachrach brings a mixture of cruelty and torment to Lester, who’s so pained he doesn’t care how miserable he makes everyone around him. Set in the early 1950s, “A Long Winter” places Mike’s gayness against the ambient misogyny of the period. Although Lester calls a barber “a communist fairy,” he can only see queer men in relation to women. Mikey can’t even begin to articulate his yearnings for men. This doesn’t add up to the impact it should. The cinematography is too picturesque to suit its pained mood. While it sensitively sketches in a family who can’t even begin to speak about their conflicts, it circles back over ground covered by dozens of Sundance favorites.
Jimmy George’s (Rami Malek) life is slipping away, even if the audience can’t tell at the start of Sachs’ “The Man I Love.” Rehearsing for an off-off-Broadway production of Michael Tremblay’s “Once Upon A Time In The East,” where he’ll play the title role in drag, the bi actor/singer slips in and out of character. As we find out, he’s just gotten out of the hospital, where he was treated for AIDS-related pneumonia. His illness makes him even more impulsive. Living with a partner (Tom Sturridge) who’s become a caretaker, he begins having sex with his neighbor Vincent (Luther Ford). “The Man I Love” takes place amidst a thriving, ungentrified ‘80s New York arts scene hit hard by AIDS. It avoids the visual shorthand of KS legions and emaciated men lying in hospital beds.
[caption id="attachment_65164" align="aligncenter" width="700"]
Jimmy George’s (Rami Malek) life is slipping away, even if the audience can’t tell at the start of Sachs’ “The Man I Love.”Jac Martinez[/caption]
Sachs’ films have drawn from the elliptical narratives of French director Maurice Pialat. “The Man I Love” leaves out details about Jimmy, his family, and relationships most films would include. Yet it’s an easier ride than the raw, ugly outbursts that fill Pialat’s work. “The Man I Love” gestures at something it doesn’t fully commit to: Jimmy’s life and death as part of an ongoing story of a community which began before he participated in it and continues afterwards. He becomes another New York legend who died of AIDS, like New Wave opera singer Klaus Nomi (who’s mentioned by name in the final scene.) His most passionate epiphanies come from music and dance, but this leaves the rest of the film muted. It’s as though “The Man I Love” outsourced its feelings to its soundtrack.
Marine Atlan’s “La Gradiva” accompanies a group of high school students’ senior trip, where their Latin teacher Madame Mercier (Antonia Buresi) guides them around Pompeii’s volcanic ruins. For Toni, (Colas Quinard) this has a deep, personal meaning: his grandmother immigrated to France from Naples. She was having an affair with her aristocratic boss, who died in an 1980 earthquake after impregnating her. He’s comfortable with his gayness, enough so that he hooks up with local men on Grindr. Introduced to us during sex with a girl, his classmate James (Mitia Capellier-Audat) longs after him. As a proxy for sex, James blows weed smoke into Toni’s mouth, but the depth of his longing remains unspoken.
“La Gradiva” begins with a very loose structure, even though Toni emerges as the central character. The teens have believable conversations about class and race, without sounding like talking points. For his teacher and the other students, traveling to Pompeii and Naples is a way of engaging with history and learning from the past. (She lectures the students about ancient Romans’ sexual practices.) He views it as an opportunity to dig farther into his roots. The setting overwhelms him. In the film’s last hour, his melancholy takes over. Atlan films her characters’ gestures as they walk up to the precipice of adulthood, not as emotionally mature as they pretend. The final shot of Toni’s face is one for the ages.
New York Film Festival | September 25th to October 12th |See https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff/ for full lineup, schedule and ticket availability.
"A Long Winter" was adapted from gay author Colm Toibin's novella.MUBI[/caption]
Moss-Bachrach brings a mixture of cruelty and torment to Lester, who’s so pained he doesn’t care how miserable he makes everyone around him. Set in the early 1950s, “A Long Winter” places Mike’s gayness against the ambient misogyny of the period. Although Lester calls a barber “a communist fairy,” he can only see queer men in relation to women. Mikey can’t even begin to articulate his yearnings for men. This doesn’t add up to the impact it should. The cinematography is too picturesque to suit its pained mood. While it sensitively sketches in a family who can’t even begin to speak about their conflicts, it circles back over ground covered by dozens of Sundance favorites.
Jimmy George’s (Rami Malek) life is slipping away, even if the audience can’t tell at the start of Sachs’ “The Man I Love.” Rehearsing for an off-off-Broadway production of Michael Tremblay’s “Once Upon A Time In The East,” where he’ll play the title role in drag, the bi actor/singer slips in and out of character. As we find out, he’s just gotten out of the hospital, where he was treated for AIDS-related pneumonia. His illness makes him even more impulsive. Living with a partner (Tom Sturridge) who’s become a caretaker, he begins having sex with his neighbor Vincent (Luther Ford). “The Man I Love” takes place amidst a thriving, ungentrified ‘80s New York arts scene hit hard by AIDS. It avoids the visual shorthand of KS legions and emaciated men lying in hospital beds.
[caption id="attachment_65164" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Jimmy George’s (Rami Malek) life is slipping away, even if the audience can’t tell at the start of Sachs’ “The Man I Love.”Jac Martinez[/caption]
Sachs’ films have drawn from the elliptical narratives of French director Maurice Pialat. “The Man I Love” leaves out details about Jimmy, his family, and relationships most films would include. Yet it’s an easier ride than the raw, ugly outbursts that fill Pialat’s work. “The Man I Love” gestures at something it doesn’t fully commit to: Jimmy’s life and death as part of an ongoing story of a community which began before he participated in it and continues afterwards. He becomes another New York legend who died of AIDS, like New Wave opera singer Klaus Nomi (who’s mentioned by name in the final scene.) His most passionate epiphanies come from music and dance, but this leaves the rest of the film muted. It’s as though “The Man I Love” outsourced its feelings to its soundtrack.
Marine Atlan’s “La Gradiva” accompanies a group of high school students’ senior trip, where their Latin teacher Madame Mercier (Antonia Buresi) guides them around Pompeii’s volcanic ruins. For Toni, (Colas Quinard) this has a deep, personal meaning: his grandmother immigrated to France from Naples. She was having an affair with her aristocratic boss, who died in an 1980 earthquake after impregnating her. He’s comfortable with his gayness, enough so that he hooks up with local men on Grindr. Introduced to us during sex with a girl, his classmate James (Mitia Capellier-Audat) longs after him. As a proxy for sex, James blows weed smoke into Toni’s mouth, but the depth of his longing remains unspoken.
“La Gradiva” begins with a very loose structure, even though Toni emerges as the central character. The teens have believable conversations about class and race, without sounding like talking points. For his teacher and the other students, traveling to Pompeii and Naples is a way of engaging with history and learning from the past. (She lectures the students about ancient Romans’ sexual practices.) He views it as an opportunity to dig farther into his roots. The setting overwhelms him. In the film’s last hour, his melancholy takes over. Atlan films her characters’ gestures as they walk up to the precipice of adulthood, not as emotionally mature as they pretend. The final shot of Toni’s face is one for the ages.
New York Film Festival | September 25th to October 12th |See https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff/ for full lineup, schedule and ticket availability. 
