‘Call Me By Your Name’: on the unforgiving pain of first love

Set against the backdrop of a charming town ‘somewhere in northern Italy,’ Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino’s newest film Call Me By Your Name tells the story of a romance that buds over a period of six weeks in the summer of 1983 between Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet), a precocious, 17-year-old musical prodigy and bookworm; and Oliver… Read More ‘Call Me By Your Name’: on the unforgiving pain of first love

‘Beach Rats’ explores the quiet pains of sexual awakening

There is something so deeply heartbreaking about the silence with which one carries pain, the consuming numbness that occurs in reaction to the ache that burdens daily existence. And if the struggles adolescents face in today’s unforgiving world aren’t hard enough, they are amplified tenfold when placed in a context of queerness. This is at… Read More ‘Beach Rats’ explores the quiet pains of sexual awakening

‘Anya Kneez’: the trials and triumphs of a queen in Beirut

A drag queen dressed in a stunning, all-white ensemble is illuminated by a strikingly beautiful array of neon lights that greets the viewer in the opening sequence of Anya Kneez: a Queen in Beirut. In what can only be described as a dreamy trance, set to the recurring tone of club music, Anya demands the… Read More ‘Anya Kneez’: the trials and triumphs of a queen in Beirut