Latin American queer cinema invasion

Last year I reported that South East Asia was becoming a major centre of gay movie-making, but this year it’s been the turn of Latin America, who’s individual countries have been turning out hit gay movies at an impressive rate.

I recently reviewed new DVD release Raging Sun, Raging Sky, a lush, erotic fable from Mexican director Julián Hernández which builds on his earlier gay films and shows his skill in putting gay themes slap-bang in the middle of an arthouse sensibility.

Raging Sun, Raging Sky – at three hours long and with virtually no dialogue – is a sign of the growing confidence among filmmakers in the region who aren’t afraid to sometimes put the artistic ahead of the commercial. This has been evidenced by a strong showing of South American movies at gay film festivals this year.

A recent winner, scooping the ‘Outstanding Artistic Achievement’ award last week at L.A.’s Outfest, is the very well received Undertow from Peruvian director Javier Fuentes-Leon. Set in a small fishing village in his native Peru, the story – best described as an arthouse Ghost for a gay audience – centres on a married fisherman who’s only crime is to fall in love with a local, gay artist, but events unfold that are beyond his control and he eventually has to choose between tradition or true love.

Another recent hot ticket on the gay film fest circuit is Leo’s Room from Uruguay. This ‘coming out’ melodrama stars attractive Martín Rodríguez as the title character, a young man just split from his girlfriend who starts to come to terms with his sexuality and retreats into a world of cruising men online. It’s actually sweeter than it sounds and lots of complications are thrown in Leo’s way en-route to finding his perfect match.

It’s not all serious, though: Plan B, a funny gay movie from director Marco Berger, shows how the best laid plans can go spectacularly wrong. Bruno, played by Manuel Vignau, hatches a scheme to get back at his ex-girlfriend who’s just dumped him. It involves secretly befriending her new beau in order to throw a spanner in the works – things get turned on their head when the new boyfriend and Bruno develop a close relationship which questions both men’s sexuality.

Plan B is from Argentina, quickly establishing itself as the Hollywood of the Latin gay movie scene with Vile Romance and Last Summer of La Boyita also dropping this past year. Vile Romance is a very dark, erotic thriller form director Jose Celestino Campusano who’s made a name for himself in his native country as a kind of gay Tarantino with a fascination for crime and violence.

Last Summer of La Boyita is a co-production with gay director Pedro Almodovar’s Spanish film company and explores themes of gender identity and acceptance in a beautifully made coming-of-age story set on an Argentine farm in the 1970s.

Latin American films are confidently putting the ‘T’ into LGBT cinema with two films from Brazil – Elvis & Madonna and Paulista – both featuring central transgender characters, although in very different styles. Rom-com Elvis & Madonna has a boyish looking, pizza delivery woman falling for a showgirl, while Paulista is a Sao Paulo set drama which intertwines the love lives of a sexually diverse group of youngsters living in the same apartment block.

South American gay movie directors aren’t afraid to explore the controversial, either. Aluisio Abranches’ film From Beginning To End may look on the surface like a typically torrid gay romance between a sexy young man and his handsome, older lover, except that in this case the two men are half-brothers and their adult sexual relationship is the culmination of an unnaturally close childhood bond.

With so much diversity in the movies coming out of Latin America right now, in both content and style, it’s an exciting time for gay cinema in the region and with many of the directors just hitting their stride it’ll be interesting to see what comes next.