Queer Screens, NewFest Fills Five Venues Through October 25

On West 23rd Street, in Fort Greene, in Astoria and on Prospect Park West, the lights go down this week for the same festival.

NewFest, New York's LGBTQ+ film festival, is in its 38th edition. In-person screenings began Thursday, October 15, and run through Sunday, October 25. Select titles stream nationally through October 30, according to the festival's site, which bills the program as more than 140 queer films.

The festival splits its slate across five rooms. Awards Watch, which published the full lineup announcement, names them as the SVA Theatre, BAM, The LGBT Community Center, the Museum of the Moving Image and Nitehawk Prospect Park.

The Shape of the Festival

The numbers are big for a festival that still feels like a neighborhood event. Awards Watch counts 144 projects from 23 countries. That includes 29 narrative features, nine documentaries, eight legacy titles, seven episodic series and 13 shorts programs. By the festival's own tally, women, nonbinary, trans and Two-Spirit filmmakers directed 67 percent of the films.

The people running it want the work treated as the main event. In the lineup announcement, as published by Awards Watch, interim executive director Lesli Klainberg says the films are "among the most ambitious, artistically vital, and anticipated films of the moment."

"This year's lineup shows that LGBTQ+ stories are not on the margins of culture." Lesli Klainberg, NewFest interim executive director, in the festival's announcement via Awards Watch

Nick McCarthy, the director of programming, frames the slate as a mix of Cannes standouts, titles fresh from Telluride and TIFF, and first films from new artists. His summary is shorter. "Queer cinema is fully alive," he says, "and it's thriving."

Bookends and Centerpieces

The festival opened on October 15 with the New York premiere of La Bola Negra, from the Spanish directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. It follows three generations of men across nearly a century of Spanish history. It won the Best Director prize at Cannes, and the cast includes Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close.

It closes on Sunday, October 25, with The Man I Love, a Cannes premiere from Ira Sachs. Set in the 1980s, it stars Rami Malek as an artist living in the narrow window between illness and death, with Rebecca Hall and Tom Sturridge. A party follows.

The centerpieces fill the week between, on the dates Awards Watch lists.

- Saturday, October 17: What Will I Become?, the documentary centerpiece, about trans boyhood and community healing. - Sunday, October 18: Mouse, the U.S. centerpiece, a coming-of-age story about a friendship that splinters as summer starts. - Monday, October 19: Elsinore, with Andrew Scott as the actor Ian Charleson, chasing Hamlet at the National Theatre. - Thursday, October 22: Clarissa, a Nigeria-set reimagining of Mrs. Dalloway. - Friday, October 23: Club Kid, Jordan Firstman's comedy about a club promoter who meets the ten-year-old son he never knew.

Elsinore opens in theaters on November 20, so Monday is an early look. Scott is in town anyway, playing Sea Wall on West 43rd Street through October 30. Club Kid, which Firstman wrote, directed and stars in, is a Friday-night film about a man who works nights. It is the one built for this city.

The Side Rooms

Some of the best nights here are not premieres. Today BAM runs a Dolly Parton double feature, 9 to 5 and Steel Magnolias, the second in 35mm. Persona, Ingmar Bergman's 1966 film, gets a 60th anniversary screening at the Museum of the Moving Image.

There is television too. The festival previews the final season of P-Valley, followed by a conversation with its creator, Katori Hall, and its star, Nicco Annan. Cynthia Nixon, this year's Voice and Visibility honoree, sits for an evening about The Gilded Age. Aubin Pictures marks 30 years with a screening and conversation.

What to Know Before You Go

A note on dates. The festival runs October 15 to 25, but BAM's own NewFest page lists only October 16 to 22. That is BAM's share of the program, not a shorter festival. BAM's slate includes the Dolly double bill and What Will I Become? today, The Hidden Face of the Earth on Sunday, a Black Queer Pride NY shorts program on Monday, Masc on Wednesday and Elephants in the Fog on Thursday. BAM is at 30 Lafayette Avenue in Fort Greene.

Everything else, including the opening and closing nights, plays at the other four venues. Check each title's page on the festival site for the room and the time. Tickets are sold through NewFest. A four-ticket package saves 10 percent, and six- and ten-ticket packages save 15 percent. Members get their own discounts.

For another night when the city stays up for a stage, see Poetry Overnight at BAM.

By October 25 the lights will have gone down and come up again more than a hundred times. In New York, that is how a festival says goodnight.