by Brian Bergen-Aurand Circumstance (2011). Director: Maryam Keshavarz. Writer: Maryam Keshavarz. Actors: Nikohl Boosheri / Sarah Kazemy / Reza Sixo Safai. Countries: France / USA/ Iran Circumstance– A fact or condition connected with or relevant to an event or action. One’s state of financial or material welfare. Circumstance often tops lists of recent LGBT cinema from the … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Queer Cinema
The Children of Srikandi / Anak-Anak Srikandi
by Brian Bergen-Aurand Produced by the Children of Srikandi Collective, Indonesia/Germany/Switzerland, color, 74 mins., 2012. An omnibus documentary recalling the Mahabharata tale of the hero who is born a girl and becomes a boy, this essay film features nine queer women describing the paradoxes of non-normative life in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country. There … Continue reading
Farewell My Concubine: A Queer Film Classic
by Brian Bergen-Aurand An early installment in Arsenal Pulp Press’s QUEER FILM CLASSICS series, Helen Hok-Sze Leung’s Farewell My Concubine (2o10) takes a queer cultural studies approach to a close reading of Chen Kaige’s 1992 Chinese film, starring Leslie Cheung, Zhang Fengyi, and Gong Li. After reading this one short (120 pocket-sized pages) study from … Continue reading
Five Films for a May Day Weekend
by Brian Bergen-Aurand Here are five films in honor of International Workers Day weekend, in no particular order. Salt of the Earth. 1954. Director, Herbert J. Biberman. Writer, Michael Wilson. Stars, Juan Chacón, Rosaura Revueltas, Will Geer. Born in Flames. 1983. Director, Lizzie Borden. Writers, Lizzie Borden and Ed Bowes. Stars, Honey, Adele Bertei, … Continue reading
Tendencies in Boo Junfeng and Eve Sedgwick
by Roy Lee Anyone who takes a first look at Boo Junfeng’s Keluar Baris (2007) would immediately assume that this Singaporean short film is merely about a boy’s anxiety over his pending National Service enlistment. However, anyone who has read and absorbed the work of the prominent queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick would probably have … Continue reading
Foreign Influence 