INTRODUCTION One year ago, when The Utah Review presented the 2019 edition of the top 10 moments of the Utah Enlightenment, it was a jubilant representation of Utah’s integral strengths as a community of the arts and the momentum that catapulted Salt Lake City as one of the Intermountain West’s most dynamic centers for creative … Read more
By the 1960s, drive-in theaters already were on the retreat, thanks to the growing number of multiplexes, the dominance of television and a broader trend of declining movie attendance. Depending on one’s perspective, drive-ins either were described as “passion pits” for young lovers or inexpensive nights out for families with children who often fell asleep … Read more
This year’s film slate for the Utah Film Center’s 17th annual Damn These Heels Queer Film Festival captures the most diverse spectrum of queer voice presented in the festival’s history. Among them are the documentary Making Sweet Tea, directed by John L. Jackson, Jr. and Nora Gross, and the Australian narrative feature Unsound, directed by Ian Watson. … Read more
In recent years mainstream cinema has made queer stories and characters more visible but the current generation of independent queer filmmakers has refreshed the culture by opening up spaces to voices that previously had been discouraged, ignored and even ostracized. Two highly recommended films being featured in the Utah Film Center’s 17th annual Damn These Heels Queer … Read more
Two marvelously entertaining queer narrative films with emotionally mature perspectives representing unlikely lovers discovering each other — – one from Vietnam and the other an American film starring a Muslim doctor living in West Hollywood – are featured in the Utah Film Center’s 17th annual Damn These Heels Queer Film Festival. They are Song Lang, a feature-length … Read more
In his director’s statement, Singaporean filmmaker Mak Chun Kit notes that discussing the sexual assault of men is a taboo subject virtually everywhere in the world and even the concept of men being sexual violence victims outside a prison setting is often looked upon as a myth. In One Taxi Ride, he presents the … Read more
Just as Thanksgiving heralded the holiday season in 1988, news spread through the underground networks of Salt Lake City’s gay community about some of the horrendous details of the murder of Gordon Ray Church, 28, a gay college student from what is now Southern Utah University. Church’s killers were tried and convicted, with Michael Archuleta … Read more
The stories of two introverted queer musicians who express their deep spirituality through their work are told separately in an exquisite pair of films as part of this year’s slate of the Utah Film Center’s 17th annual Damn These Heels Queer Film Festival. They are Variações, a Portuguese biopic written and directed by João Maia, and Keyboard … Read more
The South American continent consistently has been the source of riveting queer drama cinema and two Chilean films in this year’s slate of the Utah Film Center’s 17th annual Damn These Heels Queer Film Festival are worthwhile offerings. They include El Principe (The Prince), an impressive directorial feature-length debut by Sebastián Muñoz, and Ema, directed by Pablo … Read more
Two of the dozen documentaries being screened at the Utah Film Center’s 17th annual Damn These Heels Queer Film Festival offer fascinating cosmopolitan and cultural comparisons to the American LGBTQ+ experience. Both are outstanding: Transkids from Israel by director Hilla Medalia and Queer Japan, directed by Graham Kolbeins. Transkids The experiences of four Israeli transgender teens going … Read more