Tag Archives: Sundance 2016

5 LGBTQ Films from Sundance 2016 That You Must Watch

Every year, the Sundance Film Festival takes place in Utah. As well as being a good excuse for movie lovers to get together and enjoy a shared interest, it also gives us an idea of which films will be making the headlines throughout the year and which are likely to scoop up awards.

Sundance is also good for discovering LGBT films as well, as the event gives them a platform to show off how great they are, regardless of budget. So, to save you from going through the dozens of films at Sundance to find the ones with LGBT content, we’ve put together a list of the ones that you should keep an eye out for.


1. First Girl I Loved

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Described as a “headstrong, cool nerd”, 17-year old Anne is a member of her high school yearbook committee. While covering the school’s softball game she falls head over heels for Sasha, the team’s star player.

The two girls grow closer and when Anne tells her best friend Cliff how she’s feeling, he reveals his own crush on Anne and proceeds to lash out at her in “unanticipated ways”


2. Lovesong

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In Lovesong, Sarah (played by Riley Keough) is a young mother raising her daughter in a country home as she feels “abandoned” by her husband who travels for work. When Sarah’s friend Mindy (played by Jena Malone) comes to visit, the two women head out on a road trip and following a heart-to-heart, a “long unspoken intimacy emerges between the longtime friends”. But Sarah can’t put her feelings into words yet and Mindy goes home.

Flash forward three years and Mindy is getting married and when the two women see each other again, “Sarah is forced to reconcile the reality of her feelings”


3. The Intervention

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The Intervention isn’t necessarily an LGBT-film but it does feature a same-sex couple. In this movie, marking the directorial debut of Clea DuVall (she also wrote the film), bride-to-be Annie rounds up her “30something” friends and they head out to a summer home.

Here, Jessie, Jessie’s partner Sarah, Annie and her fiancé and Jack and his 22-year old girlfriend try their best to stage an intervention for Ruby (Jessie’s sister) and her husband Peter as they try to convince the married couple that their relationship is toxic.


4. Kiki

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Kiki, from Swedish documentary filmmaker Sara Jordenö is all about the Kiki scene of New York City. The Kiki scene, it’s explained, is where “competition between Houses demands leadership, painstaking practice, and performances on point”.

The film reveals more about this “high stakes world” and is also a window into the “daily lives of LGBTQ youth of color in NYC”. Moreover it offers “representation of a marginalized community who demand visibility and real political power”.


5. Suited

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Suited is another documentary from Sundance 2016, with this one starring Bindle & Keep, a tailoring company that caters to a diverse LGBTQ community and looks beyond the gender binary”.

Not only does it follow Rae and Daniel, the clothiers behind the brand, but it also delves into the lives of Bindle & Keep’s customers, including Mel who wants to look good for their 40th birthday party and Everett, who’s a law student in a “conservative environment”.