Manfredi Marini (right) in Giovanni Tortorici’s DICIANNOVE. Courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories and Frameline.
The title of the coming-of-age film Diciannove is Italian for nIneteen, the age of Leonardo (Manfredi Marini), who is leaving his Palermo home for the first time to begin college in London. Ever restless, he is eager to embark on his life journey, but doesn’t know where to head, and, being nineteen, he won’t listen to anyone else. In mere days, Leonardo pivots from business courses in London to the study of Italian literature at a university in Siena. He discovers a passion for old Italian writers – just not the ones his professor assigns.
Nineteen is an age that most of us sample experiences, but Leonardo is an introvert, sometimes bratty, who refuses to socialize, and we wonder if he will ever forge relationships or act on his sexual urges. Diciannove is that highly original coming-of-age film in which what even Leonardo chooses NOT to do is interesting, and we can’t predict what could make his spirit soar at the end.
Diciannove is the debut feature for writer-director Giovanni Tortorici, a protege of Luca Guadagnino, who produced the film. Tortorici and cinematographer Massimiliano Kuveiller (who has also worked with Guadagnino) maintain visual interest by throwing everything at the screen – disco scenes with an operatic score, slow motion, animated dreams and every kind of fancy cut. Nighttime scenes in a cold and hard London give way to lovingly beautiful shots of tranquil Siena.
Diciannove is the singular and imaginative calling card of a new auteur; Tortorici may be a visual show-off, but he has an uncommon gift for creating a realistic, but compelling and unpredictable character.
I screened Diciannove in June for Frameline. It’s now releasing into US arthouse theaters, including Laemmle’s Monica Film Center and the Glendale.
Photo caption: Nahuel Perez Biscayart and Ursula Corbero in KILL THE JOCKEY. Courtesy of Music Box Pictures.
In the surreal Argentine comedy Kill the Jockey, Remo (Nahuel Perez Biscayart) is a once-champion jockey, who is zealously self-sabotaging his career; self-medicating with alcohol and even swiping the racehorses’ drugs and the booze left on a good luck altar, he has become utterly unreliable. Remo can only emerge from his narcosis to demonstrate his passion for his wife Abril (Ursula Corbero). Abril is also a jockey, and her racing career is on the upswing, although she will soon have to pause it to have their baby.
Both Remo and Abril ride for a mobster (Daniel Jimenez Cacho), who, against all available evidence, has concluded that Remo can still win a big race. As a result, Remo suffers a brain injury, which spurs catatonia and, eventually, a major change in his identity. Remo leaves the hospital without being discharged, and wanders the city in a walking stupor, unaware that both a frantic Abril and the mobster’s murderous goons are searching for him. At this point, Remo is not an ideal gunowner, but he gets a pistol, and the lives of Remo, Abril and the mobster take significant twists. Kill the Jockey morphs into a fable of identity.
Nahuel Perez Biscayart in KILL THE JOCKEY. Courtesy of Music Box Pictures.
Director and co-writer Luis Ortega tells this story with plenty of droll absurdism. Inexplicably, the mobster usually carries an infant, a mounted brass band suddenly appears, the possessions of a coat pocket include a live fish, and there’s ceiling-walking. Kill the Jockey has its share of LOL moments in the first half of the film.
Early in the film, Abril launches a celebratory dance, is soon joined by Remo, and the two move together as unhinged marionettes. It’s as if figures in a Dali painting broke into a sensuous dance. This is a spellbinding scene, the best one in Kill the Jockey and, possibly, in any movie this year so far.
Unfortunately, the second half of Kill the Jockey, with more Remo and less Abril, is not as compelling. Ortega keeps throwing in the entertainingly bizarre, but the film loses momentum as Remo transforms.
I first saw Nahuel Perez Biscayart as the star of the psychological Holocaust thriller Persian Lessons. He’s a good choice to play the tragicomic Remo, a broadly funny character that morphs into a heartfelt one. But the most interesting performance in Kill the Jockey is Ursula Corbero’s as Abril – brimming with charisma and vitality; Abril must navigate her life and Remo’s as Remo’s condition keeps changing dramatically.
Kill the Jockey is Argentina’s submission for the Best International Feature Film Oscar and has been nominated for significant awards, including the Goya (best Iberoamericano film) and the best film at Venice Film Festival. It releases into theaters this weekend, including the Laemmle NoHo in LA, the Roxie in San Francisco and the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael.
Photo caption: Marion Barbeau in DRONE. Courtesy of Frameline.
Émilie (Marion Barbeau) is stalked through Paris by a mysterious drone, in Drone, a thriller that explores issues of privacy and the male gaze. A magnificent 4-minute opening sequence, introduces us to the vulnerability caused by the voyeur drone. Émilie is funding her architecture studies by working as a cam girl, a situation where she is physically detached and in control of her male customers. But there is no detachment or control whenever the paranoia-inducing drone suddenly appears.
There are exhilarating set pieces in a parking garage, a motorcycle chase and an abandoned factory, as writer-director Simon Bouisson and cinematographer Ludovic Zulli keep their drone camera in pursuit of the story’s stalker drone. In his first theatrical feature, Bouisson keeps the tension pounding, all the way to the ingenious ending.
Marion Barbeau in DRONE. Courtesy of Frameline.
Émilie is a recent architecture graduate from Lilles who has earned a high-powered fellowship in Paris. As her fellowship project, she chooses an adaptive reuse of an abandoned factory. Of course, even without the drone, we would fear for Émilie’s safety as she wanders around the dark, creepy, abandoned factory and takes long solo jogs through the city at night.
Who is flying the drone? Is it a camgirl customer who has hacked the firewall? Is it her toxic male classmate? Or her swaggering, entitled boss? Or, perhaps most terrifying, nobody at all?
Émilie is relationship-shy, but reluctantly intrigued by a DJ. Will the budding romance put both women in drone-jeopardy?
Marion Barbeau, a former ballet dancer, is superb as Émilie. Émilie, so vulnerable throughout the movie, is remarkably strong and determined, which lifts Drone above the ordinary woman-in-peril genre. Barbeau is able to project Émilie’s fundamental badassness.
I’ve listed Drone in the special Festival Films category of my Best Movies of 2025 – So Far. I screened Drone for Frameline (where it was my favorite film), and I’ll let you know when it has a theatrical or VOD release in the US.
Photo caption: Marion Barbeau in DRONE. Courtesy of Frameline and StudioCanal.
Frameline, the oldest and longest-running LGBTQ+ film festival in the world, opens tomorrow, June 18 and runs through June 28. The program includes 150 films from 40 countries, including 42 world, North American and US premieres. As always, it’s a very rich slate of films.
I’ve selected five international films to highlight. Let’s begin with two Must See directorial debuts from France and Italy.
Drone: Émilie (Marion Barbeau) is stalked through Paris by a mysterious drone, in a thriller that explores issues of privacy and the male gaze. A magnificent 4-minute opening sequence, introduces us to the vulnerability caused by the voyeur drone. Émilie is funding her architecture studies by working as a cam girl, a situation where she is physically detached from and in control of her male customers. But there is no detachment or control whenever the paranoia-inducing drone suddenly appears. There are exhilarating set pieces in a parking garage, a motorcycle chase and an abandoned factory, as writer-director Simon Bouisson and cinematographer Ludovic Zulli keep their drone camera in pursuit of the story’s stalker drone. In his first theatrical feature, Bouisson keeps the tension pounding, all the way to the ingenious ending. Must See.
Manfredi Marini (right) in Giovanni Tortorici’s DICIANNOVE. Courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories and Frameline.
Diciannove: The title is Italian for nIneteen, the age of Leonardo (Manfredi Marini), who is leaving his Palermo home for the first time to begin college in London. Ever restless, he is eager to embark on his life journey, but doesn’t know where to head, and, being nineteen, he won’t listen to anyone else. In mere days, Leonardo pivots from business courses in London to the study of Italian literature at a university in Siena. Nineteen is an age that most of us sample experiences, but Leonardo is an introvert, sometimes bratty, who refuses to socialize, and we wonder if he will ever forge relationships or act on his sexual urges. Diciannove is that highly original coming-of-age film in which even what Leonardo chooses NOT to do is interesting, and we can’t predict what could make his spirit soar at the end. Diciannove is the debut feature for writer-director Giovanni Tortorici, a protege of Luca Guadagnino, who produced the film. Tortorici and cinematographer Massimiliano Kuveiller (who has also worked with Guadagnino) maintain visual interest by throwing everything at the screen – disco scenes with an operatic score, slow motion, animated dreams and every kind of fancy cut. Diciannove is the singular and imaginative calling card of a new auteur; see it at Frameline before its US arthouse release later this year. Must See.
Bruce Pintos in KEEP COMING BACK. Courtesy of Frameline.
And here are three more highlights from Frameline’s menu of international cinema – from Uruguay, Croatia and Taiwan:
Keep Coming Back: In his first feature, director Sergio de León sends up the conventions of the underdog drama with deadpan drollery. In rural Uruguay, 18-year-old Emilio’s mother dies, leaving with a pile of debts and a collection of pigeons. The only way he can keep the family house is to win the great pigeon race. Staggered by grief, confounded by financial stress and with his hormones raging toward a sexual awakening, Emilio (Bruce Pintos) plunges ahead earnestly. Absurd hilarity ensues, including a very funny I’m sorry about your mom and the robust retelling of the story of Winkie, the historical hero pigeon. US Premiere.
Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day: Croatia’s official submission for the 2025 Academy Award for Best International Feature, this is an aspirational film with an epic sweep, passionate sex and profound tragedy, all the way to unexpected redemption. This searing critique of the Tito regime pits a man of principle and ideas against the repression of the small-minded. The heroic bravery that helps overthrow Nazi puppets is revealed to be no match for the homophobia and mindless adherence to the party line of post-war apparatchiks. Frameline hosts the International Premiere.
Silent Sparks: In this Taiwanese neo-noir, small time hood Pua is released from prison and checks in with the swaggering, exuberant local crime lord. The boss assigns him to a lieutenant, Mi-Ji, who happens to be Pua’s former cell-mate. But when Pua and Mi-Ji meet again, the encounter is a study in social awkwardness. Pua just wants to start earning money and working his way up in the syndicate, but Mi-Ji is surprisingly unhelpful. What explains Mi-Ji’s behavior toward Pua? As Silent Sparks smolders on, the risks escalate. Promising first feature for writer-director Ping Chu.
You can buy tickets for these films and peruse the entire program at Frameline. Here’s the trailer for Drone.
Ugo Tognazzi and Michel Serrault in LA CAGE AUX FOLLES
On June 13, Turner Classic Movies will present the groundbreaking French comedy La Cage Aux Folles – a daring film in 1978, when few were thinking publicly about same-sex marriage. A gay guy runs a nightclub on the Riviera, and his partner is the star drag queen. The nightclub owner’s beloved son wants him to meet the parents of his intended. But the bride-to-be’s father is a conservative politician who practices the most severe and judgmental version of Roman Catholicism, so father and son decide to conceal aspects of dad’s lifestyle. Madcap comedy ensues, and La Cage proves that broad farce can be heartfelt. Michel Serrault is unforgettable as Albin/Zaza – one of the all-time great comic performances. (La Cage was tepidly remade in 1996 as The Birdcage with Robin Williams, but you want to see the French original.)
I’m currently watching my way through the program of this year’s Frameline LGBTQ film fest, which I just previewed. I don’t think you can overestimate the cultural impact of La Cage Aux Folles, which charmed straight audiences into relating to sympathetic portrayals of LGBTQ people.
Photo caption: Olivia Coleman and John Lithgow in Sophie Hyde’s JIMPA, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Photo by Mark De Blok. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
Frameline, the oldest and longest-running LGBTQ+ film festival in the world, opens June 18 and runs through June 28. The 49th(!) Frameline brings us festival award-winners from Sundance to the Berlinale, with 150 films from 40 countries, including 42 world, North American and US premieres.
Films will screen at the Herbst Theatre and the ACT’s Toni Rembe Theater, as well as familiar arthouses like the Roxie, the Vogue, the New Parkway and, this year for the first time, the Rafael. Select films will be streamable after the in-person fest; (I’ll have more about that when I learn which films will be available online).
Here are some Frameline49 highlights:
The fest opens with John Lithgow and Olivia Colman starring in the Sundance indie Jimpa, about the Amsterdam reunion of a multigenerational queer Australian family. The HIV-positive patriarch (Lithgow) is visited by his daughter (Colman) and her non-binary child (Aud Mason-Hyde). Described as “funny and heartfelt”.
The closing night film is the dramedy Twinless. Two guys meet at a support group for people who have lost their twin – straight Roman (Dylan O-Brien) and gay Dennis (James Sweeney) – and form an unlikely connection. O’Brien won the best acting award at Sundance and the film, written and directed by Sweeney, won the best drama award. See it now, before its September release.
The program includes a whopping 25 documentary features. Given the strength of the docs in past Framelines (Loving Highsmith, Making Montgomery Clift), this looks like a rich slate of docs.
Some of the screenings are already selling fast and, although Frameline may add some screenings, it would be wise to get your tickets now. You can peruse the program and get passes and tickets at Frameline.
As in my Frameline coverage last year, I’ll be focusing on international cinema, especially directorial debuts. The Frameline programmers have a gift for finding the promising first films of new directors. In recent years, Frameline has presented Marion Desseigne-Ravel’s French coming-of-age story Besties, Marius Olteanu‘s innovative Romanian drama Monsters.(sic), Leon Le’s groundbreaking Vietnamese romance Song Lang, and Arantxa Echevarria’s Spanish sexual awakening tale Carmen y Lola. Last year, Frameline hosted the North American premiere of the third feature by Brazilian auteur Juliana Rojas, Cidade; Campo.
In this year’s program, I’ve already found some gems from Croatia and Taiwan – and a wowzer from France. Just before the fest opens, I’ll be coming back with specific recommendations.
Dylan O’Brien and James Sweeney in James Sweeney’s TWINLESS. Photo by Greg Cotten. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
Photo caption: Sabrina Jie-A-Fa and Louis Tomeo in EGGHEAD & TWINKIE. Credit: Olivia Wilson, Courtesy of CanBeDone Films and Orange Cat Films.
In the funny, sweet and genuine coming of age film Egghead & Twinkie, Twinkie (Sabrina Jie-A-Fa) is finishing high school and trying to navigate her sexual awakening as aa lesbian – and it’s not easy. Her lifelong bestie is the neighbor boy Egghead (Louis Tomei), and he’s now sweet on her; (Egghead and Twinkie are their nicknames for each other), Twinkie impulsively commandeers her dad’s car and heads out on a cross country road trip to join her Internet object of desire (Tik Tok star Ayden Lee). Egghead is so loyal, smitten and cluelessly hopeful that he comes along.
Along the way, they have their share of zany road trip experiences. Twinkie meets the girl (Asahi Hirano) who REALLY is perfect for her, but Twinkie is first destined to learn a cruel lesson about being infatuated with a player. It’s a hoot, and there’s not one false note. For all their kooky antics, the kids’ feelings are remarkably authentic.
The entire cast is very good. Sabrina Jie-A-Fa is a charming force of nature as Twinkie. She’s in every scene, and she’s a real talent.
Asahi Hirano and Sabrina Jie-A-Fa in EGGHEAD & TWINKIE. Credit: Olivia Wilson, Courtesy of CanBeDone Films and Orange Cat Films.
Egghead & Twinkie is the first feature for writer-director Sarah Kambe Holland, and it’s an impressive calling card. Egghead & Twinkie is perfectly paced, and Kambe Holland sprinkles in just enough animation to help leaven the angst with the whimsical. Kambe Holland says,
“The kernel of an idea that turned into EGGHEAD & TWINKIE was more of a question: Can I find humor in the coming out process? I was nineteen years old at the time, and I had just come out to my own parents a few months before. The stress of coming out was fresh in my mind, but so was the hilarious awkwardness of it all. I challenged myself to write a short film script about a teenage girl who comes out to her parents, but I was adamant that it wouldn’t be a drama. It would be a comedy, and the message would be one of hope and friendship.“
Of course, given Kambe Holland’s inspiration for the story, Twinkie just doesn’t HAPPEN to be gay or HAPPEN to be Asian-American, but the themes are universal, and Egghead & Twinkie is one of the best coming-of-age films of the decade.
I screened Egghead & Twinkie for its premiere at Cinequest.. After a strong festival run, Egghead & Twinkie is available on VOD, including Amazon, AppleTV and YouTube, beginning today.
Photo caption: Guan-Zhi Huang and Ming-Shuai Shih in SILENT SPARKS. Courtesy of Cinequest.
In the Taiwanese neo-noir Silent Sparks, small time hood Pua (Guan-Zhi Huang) is released from prison and checks in with the local crime lord (Chih-Wei Cheng). The boss assigns him to a lieutenant, Mi-Ji (Ming-Shuai Shih), who happens to be Pua’s former cell-mate. But when Pua and Mi-Ji meet again, the encounter is a study in social awkwardness. Pua just wants to start earning money and working his way up in the syndicate, but Mi-Ji is surprisingly unhelpful.
Pua finally gets the chance to do some crime, and we wonder, will Pua get caught, or worse? And what explains Mi-Ji’s behavior toward Pua? As Silent Sparks smolders on, the risks escalate.
The lead actors are very good. Chih-Wei Cheng is very funny as the crusty, vulgar crime boss, who is full of joie de vivre. Jui-Chun Fan is exceptional as Pua’s mom.
Chih-Wei Cheng in SILENT SPARKS. Courtesy of Cinequest.Jui-Chun Fan and Guan-Zhi Huang in SILENT SPARKS. Courtesy of Cinequest.
Silent Sparks is the first feature for writer-director Ping Chu, and it’s a promising debut. I screened Silent Sparks for its US premiere at Cinequest.
Photo caption: Roser Tapias in YOU ARE NOT ME. Courtesy of Music Box Films.
In the Spanish psychological horror film You Are Not Me, Aitana (Roser Tapias) and her Brazilian partner Gabi (Yapoena Silva), with their adopted infant, show up early for Christmas at the Catalan home of Aitana’s affluent parents (Pilar Almeria and Alfred Pico). And Aitana seems to step into a nightmare. Or is it?
The first thing that rocks Aitana is her parents’ reaction. They don’t seem happy to see Aitana after many years, nor to meet her partner or their own first grandchild. They’re especially displeased that Aitana’s family has arrived on the eve of a dinner party they’ve planned, a special party that is not the usual family holiday get-together.
Why are the parents acting so inappropriately? Are they homophobic? Are they racist (the baby is black)? Are they still pissed off at Aitana? Aitana is headstrong and often tactless, and we learn that there’s some baggage; years before, the parents were hosting Aitana’s wedding to their ideal son-in-law, when Aitana, realizing she was a lesbian, suddenly ran away, leaving everyone in the lurch.
Aitana is also upset by the condition of her wheelchair-bound younger brother, Saul (Jorge Motos), whose degenerative disease is apparently getting worse.
But, what really sends Aitana over the edge is that her parents are fawning over a Romanian woman Aitana’s age, Nadia (Anna Kurikka). They have awarded Aitana’s room to Nadia, along with their affection and even Aitana’s wedding dress. When Aitana discovers evidence of Nadia’s dishonesty and even behavior that threatens Saul, the parents refuse to listen.
A scene from in YOU ARE NOT ME. Courtesy of Music Box Films.
Finally, there’s the parents’ formal dinner party, hosting several couples their age. The parents are meeting many of the guests, from several European countries, for the first time. The guests are unusually convivial (and horny). Although the guests are outwardly very traditional, they make what is a decidedly a creepy assemblage. Everything is conventional, but Aitana and the audience feel that something must be amiss.
You Are Not Me was co-written and co-directed by Marisa Crespo and Moisés Romera in their second feature film. It’s a well-directed film that benefits from a clever story that keeps the audience off-balance. Are these things really happening, or is Aitana imagining or dreaming them, or even hallucinating? Is Aitana just easily offended or is she paranoid or even schizophrenic? Her well-balanced partner Gabi is rolling with the punches and unintentionally gaslighting Aitana. By making Aitana so prickly, having her jet-lagged and then drunk, Crespo and Romera keep us wondering. And just when we think that the ending is outrageously cheesy, Crespo and Romera creep us out again.
You Are Not Me is streaming on Amazon and Fandango.
Photo caption: Daniel Craig in QUEER. Courtesy of A24.
The first thing I need to tell you about Luca Guadagnino’s Queer is something that I knew beforehand but failed to internalize – it is based on a William S. Burroughs story, an autobiographical one at that. Had I been thinking about that, I wouldn’t have been so jarred when the film veered into the super trippy.
Queer starts off coloring within the lines of a character study and romantic drama. William Lee (Daniel Craig) is an American expat in 1950s Mexico City; a man of independent means, he is continually drinking and prowling for sex with younger men. He glimpses Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), a gorgeous American of ambiguous sexuality and is instantly infatuated; Lee begins a pursuit, and Eugene is hard to get, until he isn’t.
That’s the first act, which absorbed me. But it didn’t prepare me for the turgid second act, which is about opiate addiction nor the third act, which is about a search for psychedelics. That third act is bizarre, with some ripping moments.
Luca Guadagnino is known for visually striking, even delectable, movies; he and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (also Call Me By Your Name and Challengers) oblige with plenty of Mexico City and Ecuadorian jungle eye candy, mostly shot in an Italian studio. There’s an especially wonderful dream sequence after Lee’s most extreme drunk night. This is the first Guadagnino movie I’ve seen with special effects, which are necessary in the hallucinatory third act.
But Queer is too long overall, especially the hallucination scene. The entire second act drags.
Daniel Craig’s acting ability was justifiably admired before he became such an iconic James Bond. Here, his Lee is so fascinated and yet mystified by Eugene. Lee is always off-balance when he can win Eugene’s company, but he can’t control him. Lee has attained a relationship, but it’s an asymmetric one.
If there’s any doubt that he is very comfortable putting James Bond behind him, that doubt is erased when we see Daniel Craig playing a character with semen glistening on his lips.
Craig also plays drunk very well – which many actors fail to do convincingly. He nails the various degrees, starting at the point where Lee fails to read the room correctly and acts cutesy when it isn’t funny. As Lee becomes more tipsy, Craig perfectly adds a slight sway to his gait, then a bigger one.
We have known Craig can act since The Mother (2003) and Layer Cake (2004), so Drew Starkey, who hadn’t yet had a memorable performance, is the real discovery here. Eugene is anything but demonstrative, and Starkey communicates all of Eugene’s interest in Lee and resistance to Lee, with his eyes and body.
Lesley Manville jumps off the screen in what must be the most bizarre portrayal in her storied career; at some point, she must have played one of the witches from Macbeth, but she looks more the part here, with greasy hair, darkened teeth and unhinged eyes, than she could have in any other production. Her performance is very, very strong.
Jason Schwartzman, playing one of Lee’s Mexico City expat buddies, is very funny every time he’s on the screen.
So, what do I think about Queer? Luca Guadagnino and his team are interesting and accomplished artists, Daniel Craig is an actor worthy of his stardom and it’s great to have a non-heterosexual romantic drama – BUT, the choice to hew so closely to Burroughs’ source material, along with some self-indulgent editing, condemns the second half of Queer to lose the audience (me, at least).
