BFI Flare 2018: Hard Paint

K A O S

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B F I  F L A R E

L o n d o n  L G B T  F i l m  F e s t i v a l  2 0 1 8

"Moody, disturbed loner Pedro lives in the depressed harbour town of Porto Alegre. He scrapes together a living as webcam performer NeonBoy and erotic displays of his naked body smeared with neon paint attract a devoted following. When he discovers another male performer, Leon, has copied his act under the pseudonym Boy25, it prompts a radical change to Pedro’s performance and life. His reluctance to leave the house and his desperate need for money hide a deeper anxiety that force Pedro to confront his existence. Love, commerce, family and relationships are thrown into question as he struggles to keep things under control, ever hopeful and resilient in the face of moral, social, sexual and personal change."

For Pedro (Shico Menegat), life in the Brazilian backwater Porto Alegre ain't a lot of fun... Wait, this is sounding a lot like last night's film, Marilyn.

But that's not a criticism. Marilyn is an excellent picture, and Marcio Reolon and Filipe Matzembacher's Hard Paint is too. The films' similarities - bullying and isolation in unforgiving nowheresville - won't be unfamiliar to LGBT audiences (or queer cinema devotees).

Erotic and atmospheric, this is a film about isolation and alienation. Menegat is utterly mesmerising as Pedro, rendering him incredibly sympathetic, a real triumph for a character who is so shut off. Your heart breaks for the boy.

The final act is agonisingly bittersweet, but apt, and a pleasing diversion from gay cinema's dependence on tragedy. Hard Paint is a film that will stay with you long after the credits roll. Superb.

READ ALL MY REVIEWS FROM BFI FLARE

BFI Flare 2018: Marilyn

K A O S

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B F I  F L A R E

L o n d o n  L G B T  F i l m  F e s t i v a l  2 0 1 8

"Marcos (Walter Rodríguez) is a gentle, shy boy who helps around his family’s rented cattle ranch. Rustlers are a constant threat, but Marcos seems happier advising his mother on her wardrobe and doing her hair. His family and other locals sense his difference and perceive it as weakness. Following his father’s death and on the celebration of the night of the carnival, Marcos dresses as a young woman and even enjoys the opportunity to dance and flirt with seeming impunity. But there are serious consequences when he is confronted by young men who seem both violently attracted to and utterly repelled by him. Discovering his own sexual desires forces a change in Marcos’ attitudes and makes him fight back against his family’s attempts to control him."

For Marcos (Walter Rodríguez), life in the rural outskirts of Buenos Aires ain't a lot of fun. But boy girl, he don't make things easy for himself.

Argentine director Martin Rodriguez Redondo’s debut, Marilyn, is based on the true story of Marcelo B (now Marilyn), who shot his mother and brother to death, was sentenced to life in prison, and married in prison - Argentina’s first in a prison (to a serial rapist. But that, as Redondo pointed out in last night's Q&A, is another story.)

Redondo’s film is a contemplative, understated, portrait of repressed youth, offering hope, a shocking denouement, and a uniformly brilliant cast.

The big winners at last year's festival, for me, were Jesús and Corpo Elétrico (Eng: Body Electric), from Chile and Brazil respectively. In 2016, Venezuela's Desde allá (Eng: From Afar) startled. Marilyn continues the South American winning streak. Will our trip back to Brazil with Tinta Bruta (Eng: Hard Paint) maintain the momentum?

READ ALL MY REVIEWS FROM BFI FLARE

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe

MASS IN MOTION

I  T  '  S    A    M  A  N  '  S    W  O  R  L  D    A  N  D    Y  O  U    M  E  N    C  A  N    H  A  V  E    I  T

Baby Yors

BEATS, RHYMES & LIFE
W  H  E  R  E     W  O  R  D  S     F  A  I  L    ,     M  U  S  I  C     S  P  E  A  K  S

Watch Bad Influence, the latest from Baby Yors.

Bad Influence is out now.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world

MASS IN MOTION
E  R  O  T  I  C  A

I    T    '    S        A        M    A    N    '    S        W    O    R    L    D        A    N    D        Y    O    U        M    E    N        C    A    N        H    A    V    E        I    T

Cor.Ece

BEATS, RHYMES & LIFE
W  H  E  R  E     W  O  R  D  S     F  A  I  L    ,     M  U  S  I  C     S  P  E  A  K  S

Watch Between Something And Nothing, a stunning short film from queer St. Louis native Cor.Ece.

Between Something And Nothing is out now.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle

MASS IN MOTION

I  T  '  S    A    M  A  N  '  S    W  O  R  L  D    A  N  D    Y  O  U    M  E  N    C  A  N    H  A  V  E    I  T

The remoteness of a thing is in proportion rather to the visual power of the memory that is looking at it than to the real interval of the intervening days

MASS IN MOTION

I  T  '  S    A    M  A  N  '  S    W  O  R  L  D    A  N  D    Y  O  U    M  E  N    C  A  N    H  A  V  E    I  T

Coming abruptly, and without giving me time to trace it accurately to its source among so many ideas of a very different kind, the pleasure which accompanied this desire seemed only a degree superior to what was given me by my other thoughts

MASS IN MOTION

I  T  '  S    A    M  A  N  '  S    W  O  R  L  D    A  N  D    Y  O  U    M  E  N    C  A  N    H  A  V  E    I  T

We dream much of paradise, or rather of a number of successive paradises, but each of them is, long before we die, a paradise lost, in which we should feel ourselves lost too

MASS IN MOTION

I  T  '  S    A    M  A  N  '  S    W  O  R  L  D    A  N  D    Y  O  U    M  E  N    C  A  N    H  A  V  E    I  T

Baby Yors

BEATS, RHYMES & LIFE
W  H  E  R  E     W  O  R  D  S     F  A  I  L    ,     M  U  S  I  C     S  P  E  A  K  S

Here's Baby Yors with Bad Influence. Get it.

Bad Influence is out now.

Share The Love

BEATS, RHYMES & LIFE
W  H  E  R  E     W  O  R  D  S     F  A  I  L    ,     M  U  S  I  C     S  P  E  A  K  S

Living for this gorgeous ad for gay love Romeo. Beautiful. The song is Nothing To Lose, by Abstract Future.

Nothing To Lose is out now.

The places we have known do not belong only to the world of space on which we map them for our own convenience. They were only a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time

MASS IN MOTION

I  T  '  S    A    M  A  N  '  S    W  O  R  L  D    A  N  D    Y  O  U    M  E  N    C  A  N    H  A  V  E    I  T

For a young man has strong imagination but poor judgment, so that he imagines others to be as big as he is but considers himself to be very small. He has unbounded trust in the universe but is constantly unsure of himself

MASS IN MOTION

I  T  '  S    A    M  A  N  '  S    W  O  R  L  D    A  N  D    Y  O  U    M  E  N    C  A  N    H  A  V  E    I  T

For every death is for others a simplification of life, it spares them the necessity of showing gratitude, the obligation of paying calls

MASS IN MOTION

I  T  '  S    A    M  A  N  '  S    W  O  R  L  D    A  N  D    Y  O  U    M  E  N    C  A  N    H  A  V  E    I  T

They seemed nothing more now than the purely subjective, impotent, illusory creatures of my temperament

MASS IN MOTION

I  T  '  S    A    M  A  N  '  S    W  O  R  L  D    A  N  D    Y  O  U    M  E  N    C  A  N    H  A  V  E    I  T

The only thing that counts is that stuff you take to the bank, that filthy buck that everybody sneers at, but slugs to get

TIRED OLD

Q u e e n

a t  t h e

MOVIES

Once again, Joan Crawford wallows in the underworld with some very questionable characters in Vincent Sherman’s The Damned Don’t Cry (1950).

Surrounded by a bevy of handsome thugs, that include David Brian, Richard Egan and hunkie Steve Cochran, Joan tries seduces them all with varying degrees of success as she works her way up from cigarette girl to gangsters moll in this quintessential Fabulous Film Noir!  Steve Hayes

Jason Hamlin

BEATS, RHYMES & LIFE
W  H  E  R  E     W  O  R  D  S     F  A  I  L    ,     M  U  S  I  C     S  P  E  A  K  S

Jason Hamlin - Dreaming A Place. Get it.

Dreaming A Place is out now.

An artist, however modest, is always willing to hear himself preferred to his rivals, and tries only to see that justice is done them

MASS IN MOTION

I  T  '  S    A    M  A  N  '  S    W  O  R  L  D    A  N  D    Y  O  U    M  E  N    C  A  N    H  A  V  E    I  T

Often the sun would disappear behind a cloud, which impinged on its roundness, but whose edge the sun gilded in return

MASS IN MOTION

I  T  '  S    A    M  A  N  '  S    W  O  R  L  D    A  N  D    Y  O  U    M  E  N    C  A  N    H  A  V  E    I  T

The courage of one's opinions is always a form of calculating cowardice in the eyes of the "other side"

MASS IN MOTION

I  T  '  S    A    M  A  N  '  S    W  O  R  L  D    A  N  D    Y  O  U    M  E  N    C  A  N    H  A  V  E    I  T

IAAF World Indoor Championships Birmingham 2018

A R E N A

IF IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO WINS OR LOSES, THEN WHY DO THEY KEEP SCORE?

Here's some highlights from the IAAF World Championships in Birmingham.

Pascal Martinot-Lagarde made his long-awaited return from injury, but could only manage fifth, with Britain's Andrew Pozzi taking gold. Christian Coleman conquered all in the 60m. Here's the full results.

In summer, bad weather is no more than a passing fit of superficial ill-temper expressed by the permanent, underlying fine weather

MASS IN MOTION

I  T  '  S    A    M  A  N  '  S    W  O  R  L  D    A  N  D    Y  O  U    M  E  N    C  A  N    H  A  V  E    I  T

We need to bear in mind that our opinion of other people, our ties with friends or family, have only the semblance of fixity and are, in fact, as eternally fluid as the sea

MASS IN MOTION

I  T  '  S    A    M  A  N  '  S    W  O  R  L  D    A  N  D    Y  O  U    M  E  N    C  A  N    H  A  V  E    I  T

The remoteness of a thing is in proportion rather to the visual power of the memory that is looking at it than to the real interval of the intervening days

MASS IN MOTION

I  T  '  S    A    M  A  N  '  S    W  O  R  L  D    A  N  D    Y  O  U    M  E  N    C  A  N    H  A  V  E    I  T

Do not wait for life. Do not long for it. Be aware, always and at every moment, that the miracle is in the here and now

MASS IN MOTION

I  T  '  S    A    M  A  N  '  S    W  O  R  L  D    A  N  D    Y  O  U    M  E  N    C  A  N    H  A  V  E    I  T

Ryan O’Shaughnessy

BEATS, RHYMES & LIFE
W  H  E  R  E     W  O  R  D  S     F  A  I  L    ,     M  U  S  I  C     S  P  E  A  K  S

Ryan O’Shaughnessy’s Together is Ireland's official Eurovision song contest entry. The video depicts the end of a (gay) affair. Get it.

Back To Square One is out now.

There are few who are worthy to understand what I feel... I seek out those who are of this chosen few, and I avoid the rest

MASS IN MOTION

I  T  '  S    A    M  A  N  '  S    W  O  R  L  D    A  N  D    Y  O  U    M  E  N    C  A  N    H  A  V  E    I  T

Matt Palmer

BEATS, RHYMES & LIFE
W  H  E  R  E     W  O  R  D  S     F  A  I  L    ,     M  U  S  I  C     S  P  E  A  K  S

Get Comfortable with the final chapter in Matt Palmer's visual EP, Get Lost.

Get Lost is out now.

MNEK

BEATS, RHYMES & LIFE
W  H  E  R  E     W  O  R  D  S     F  A  I  L    ,     M  U  S  I  C     S  P  E  A  K  S

Tongue with MNEK. Get it.

Tongue is out now.

Bipolar Sunshine

BEATS, RHYMES & LIFE
W  H  E  R  E     W  O  R  D  S     F  A  I  L    ,     M  U  S  I  C     S  P  E  A  K  S

Feel the Pressure with Bipolar Sunshine. Get it.

Pressure is out now.