Abel Ferrara and Willem Dafoe’s Pasolini is finally getting a release in the United States

Kino Lorber has acquired the North American rights to distribute Pasolini, a long-awaited film about the final days of the controversial Italian filmmaker. It will finally be available on DVD in September.

Directed by Bad Lieutenant and King of New York auteur Abel Ferrera (a controversial filmmaker in his own right), the film stars Willem Dafoe as the titular artist who was violently murdered under mysterious circumstances.

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Throwback Thursday: The Garden

Half waking dream and half fiery polemic, the experimental 1990 film The Garden was born of director Derek Jarman’s rage over continued anti-gay discrimination and the sluggardly response to the AIDS crisis – he had been diagnosed HIV-positive in 1988 and eventually died in 1994.

Starring Jarman’s eternally fascinating before-she-was-famous muse Tilda Swinton, this uniquely kaleidoscopic film shows the filmmaker’s genius at its most coruscating, making space in its breadth of vision for an over-the-top Hollywood-style musical number, nightmare images of tar-and-feather queer persecution, and footage of the particularly menacing-looking nuclear power plant that overlooks Jarman’s own garden, the point from which his film begins, and a cherished spot which he must keep tending to even as his body begins to betray him.

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Daddy and the Muscle Academy (c) Kino Lorber

Throwback Thursday: Daddy and the Muscle Academy

One of the year’s most acclaimed gay films, award-winning filmmaker Dome Karukoski‘s Tom of Finland is coming to DVD and Blu-ray in February courtesy of Kino Lorber. Known to the world as Tom of Finland, artist Touko Laaksonen shaped the fantasies of a generation of gay men with his proudly erotic and taboo-shattering drawings of testosterone filled, muscle-bound men. But who was the man behind the leather? This stirring biopic follows his life from the trenches of WWII and repressive Finnish society of the 1950s through his struggle to get his work published in California, where he and his art were finally embraced amid the sexual revolution of the 1970s. Tom’s story is one of love, courage and perseverance, mirroring the gay liberation movement for which his leather-clad studs served as a defiant emblem.

 

Also coming in February, timed with the release of the new biopic, is a special edition Blu-ray of an unusual gay classic. Blending live action, animation and interviews, Daddy and the Muscle Academy, originally released in 1991, is a steamy documentary from filmmaker Ilppo Pohjola that explores the life and art of the famed gay iconoclast – whose pornographic drawings of massively-endowed men in leather, uniforms and totally naked have aroused a generation of gay men.

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Tom of Finland (c) Kino Lorber

Coming Soon: Tom of Finland

In one of the year’s most acclaimed gay films, award-winning filmmaker Dome Karukoski brings to screen the life and work of one of the most influential and celebrated figures of 20th century LGBTQ life.

 

Known to the world as Tom of Finland, artist Touko Laaksonen shaped the fantasies of a generation of gay men with his proudly erotic and taboo-shattering drawings of testosterone filled, muscle-bound men. But who was the man behind the leather? This stirring biopic follows his life from the trenches of WWII and repressive Finnish society of the 1950s through his struggle to get his work published in California, where he and his art were finally embraced amid the sexual revolution of the 1970s. Tom’s story is one of love, courage and perseverance, mirroring the gay liberation movement for which his leather-clad studs served as a defiant emblem.

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Our Top 15 Gay Movies of 2017!

2017 was a great year for movies… and movies centered around gay men in particular. Not only was there a wealth of titles to choose from, but many of them rose above the gay movie niche and made a huge splash on the international film fest circuit. Some even broke through into the mainstream (looking at you, Call Me by Your Name). Check out our Top 15 Gay Movies of 2017 below and make sure to pick up your copies on DVD and Blu-ray at TLAgay.com! All but one of our top 15 are currently listed and we’ll be posting the final straggler (looking at you again, Call Me by Your Name) for pre-order as soon as it’s announced – most likely once it has finished making the award show rounds.

 

B&B (c) Breaking Glass Pictures

B&B (c) Breaking Glass Pictures

15. B&B

Director: Joe Ahearne

Lovers Marc and Fred (Tom Bateman and Sean Teale) initiated a major legal battle after they were refused a double bed at a remote Christian guest house. They came out of their court case victorious and now they’re back at the establishment to claim their conjugal rights. Triumph, however, quickly turns to terror when a scary Russian neo-Nazi also checks in. Their weekend of celebratory fun soon becomes a bloody battle for survival. B&B is a whip-smart and brutally funny dark comedy-thriller that has been earning rave reviews from critics – some of whom have even compared it to the work of Alfred Hitchcock. The Hollywood Outsiders, specifically, called it “a film Alfred Hitchcock would be proud of.” The Horror Society said it’s “frickin’ fantastic and a trailblazer for LGBT cinema.”

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The Wound

The Wound Trailer

Brimming with sex and violence, The Wound is an exploration of tradition and sexuality set amid South Africa’s Xhosa culture.

 

Every year, the tribe’s young men are brought to the mountains of the Eastern Cape to participate in an ancient coming-of-age ritual. Xolani, a quiet and sensitive factory worker (played by openly gay musician Nakhane Touré), is assigned to guide Kwanda, a city boy from Johannesburg sent by his father to be toughened up, through this rite of passage into manhood. As Kwanda defiantly negotiates his queer identity within this masculine environment, he quickly recognizes the nature of Xolani’s relationship with fellow guide Vija. The three men commence a dangerous dance with each other and their own desires and, soon, the threat of exposure elevates the tension to breaking point.

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