NewFest has announced its full lineup for 2023, including advanced screenings, premieres, narrative and doc programming, as well as the 35th edition’s Queer Visionary Award recipient.
As part of this year’s offerings, the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Film Festival will screen in-person and virtually 132 films from 26 countries, including 25 narrative features, 15 documentary features, five legacy retrospective features, seven episodic series and 12 shorts programs. For the 2023 edition, 56 percent of films are directed by women, non-binary, trans and two-spirit filmmakers, with 71 percent of the lineup by and about underrepresented voices in the queer community.
“For 35 years — starting at the height of the AIDS crisis and continuing through today’s essential fight for trans rights — NewFest has provided a safe and joyful environment for the queer community to see themselves on screen,” David Hatkoff, NewFest’s executive director, said in a statement. “During this year’s thrilling anniversary edition of the festival, we will reflect on our legacy, assess the current moment with clear and lovingly critical eyes, and gaze toward the future of our community and art form, confident in the knowledge that visibility, authentic representation and connection will continue to change and save lives for a long time to come.”
The 2023 Centerpiece lineup will be either New York or world premieres, joining the previously announced New York Centerpiece doc Queen of New York, from director Emma Fidel and starring drag artist and activist Marti Cummings.
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s NYAD, starring Annette Bening, Jodie Foster and Rhys Ifans, has been named the U.S. Centerpiece film. The movie follows the story of Diana Nyad, who completed a 110-mile open ocean swim at the age of 60. Hirokazu Koreeda’s Monster, a multi-perspective drama set in Japan the explores a mystery surrounding a puzzling incident at an elementary school, will also get its New York premiere as the International Centerpiece screening.
Beyond the Aggressives: 25 Years Later — a long-awaited revisiting of the lives of four queer masculine-presenting BIPOC people who challenge gender identity conceptions — is not only NewFest’s 2023 Documentary Centerpiece, but will screen its world premiere at the festival alongside its predecessor, 2005’s groundbreaking doc The Aggressives.
NewFest has named Todd Haynes this year’s Queer Visionary Award winner, with the director slated to accept the honor on Oct. 19 ahead of a special screening of May December. Set to release on Netflix and in select theaters on Nov. 17, the film follows an actress (portrayed by Natalie Portman) who heads to Savannah, Georgia to research a part for a new film about the past of a married couple (played by Julianne Moore and Charles Melton).
Among NewFest’s advanced series screenings are the first episode of Showtime’s anticipated limited series Fellow Travelers starring Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey, as well as episodes six and seven of the Rhys Darby and Taika Waititi-led Max series Our Flags Mean Death.
Narrative program selections include Mauricio Calderón Rico’s All the Fires, about a pyromaniac teen who runs away from challenges at home in search of a girl he met online and the New York premiere of Luke Gilford’s National Anthem, which follows a young man after he joins a community of queer ranchers and rodeo performers.
William Oldroyd’s adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel Eileen — which centers on a disillusioned juvenile prison secretary (Thomasin McKenzie) whose life is transformed by the arrival of a new counselor from Cambridge (Anne Hathaway) — will also make its New York debut during the festival.
The Documentary program is set to feature screenings of Berlinale Special Jury Prize and Teddy Award winner Orlando, My Political Biography, Khoa Lê’s Mother Saigon, and the New York premiere of Emmy-winning director Nneka Onuorah’s Truth Be Told.
NewFest35’s legacy programming includes the New York premieres of Young Soul Rebels and Chocolate Babies‘ 4K restorations, as well as a screening of the doc A Simple Matter of Justice, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation.
Rustin and All of Us Strangers were previously announced as the 2023 edition’s opening and closing night films.
“This year’s momentous lineup propels NewFest’s ongoing mission to celebrate cinema and our community on a local and global scale,” said Nick McCarthy, NewFest’s director of programming, in his own statement. “We’re excited to amplify a range of audacious debut work alongside award-winners from venerable international festivals, from social justice docs to prestige films. Each film in our vibrant program exists in dialogue with one another, and we can’t wait to connect an expanse of artists in conversation — whether pioneers of New Queer Cinema or emerging new filmmakers, to paint a fuller portrait of our community.”
The 35th anniversary edition of NewFest will take place Oct. 12-22 in Manhattan at SVA Theatre and The LGBT Community Center, and in Brooklyn at Nitehawk Prospect Park and The Brooklyn Academy of Music. Tickets for the hybrid festival, which can also be accessed virtually throughout the U.S. on NewFest’s on-demand platform through Oct. 24, are currently on sale.
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