Tender drama … Sorry Angel Photograph: PR Company Handout
BEST FOREIGN GAY MOVIES 2018 FULL
At an event whose programming is still controversially plagued by representational blind spots – not least its shortage of female film-makers – the rainbow flag was flying at full mast. The Belgian director Lukas Dhont’s debut Girl, a sensitively wrought study of an aspiring transgender ballerina, prevailed over a number of credible candidates: Kenyan lesbian coming-of-ager Rafiki, tough French rentboy portrait Sauvage, loopy Portuguese elasti-sexual comedy Diamantino and Christophe Honore’s tender Parisian Aids drama Sorry Angel, among others. Not so this year, as the cocktail rounds were lightly speckled with speculation after a festival unusually rich in LGBT narratives. That one overtly queer film that was in the official selection? Yep, probably that one. It’s traditionally more of a party than an awards ceremony, not least because the winner tends to be a foregone conclusion.
O n the penultimate night of this year’s recent Cannes film festival, I went - as is the custom for rosé-seeking journalists hanging on through the last days - to the Queer Palme awards night, where an independent jury announces their pick for the best LGBT-themed film of the fest.