Hello Reader, It can be easy for some of us to forget how recent the “bad old days” were — when queer couples were still jumping through hoops to be seen, recognized, allowed. Alice Douard’s debut feature, Love Letters, just premiered in Critics’ Week — one of the lesser-publicized sidebars at Cannes (which I broke down on Ep. 171 of the podcast). It’s not available to watch yet — but it’s one to keep an eye out for. And if you’re curious about how it captures a very recent chapter of queer...
5 days ago • 1 min read
Hello Reader, We’re midway through this year’s Cannes Film Festival — and while it hasn’t made many headlines, seven women directors are in Competition this year. That’s the most in the festival’s history. It’s progress — but it’s also a reminder of how far we still are from gender parity. And most of those seven are white women. Many of the best women directors working today are still relegated to sidebars… or left out entirely. In Episode 1 of our Women at Cannes series on the Seventh Row...
6 days ago • 1 min read
Hello Reader, When End of the Century hit our screens back in 2019, it felt like discovering a secret: a queer Before Trilogy wrapped into a single film, where every encounter rewrites the last and nothing unfolds in a straight line. Lucio Castro is the kind of filmmaker I love to spotlight: making rich, risk-taking work outside the mainstream. His new film, Drunken Noodles, just premiered at Cannes’ ACID sidebar — and while it’s not yet available to stream, it’s one to keep on your radar. I...
7 days ago • 1 min read
Hello Reader, With Young Mothers, the Dardennes’ new film, premiering in Competition at Cannes next week, I’m finally publishing something I’ve been sitting on for nearly a decade. In 2016, I interviewed the Belgian Palme d'Or Winners Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) about The Unknown Girl. (The film stars Adèle Haenel, the co-lead of Portrait of a Lady on Fire.) We spoke in French — no translator, just my rusty comprehension and their willingness...
11 days ago • 1 min read
Hello Reader, Are you ready for Cannes? The 2025 Cannes Film Festival kicks off today, and while everyone's focused on the Palme d'Or contenders, I'm here to tell you there's a whole world of incredible cinema waiting to be discovered beyond the main competition. For example, Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman (1975) — the film crowned as the greatest film of all time in the 2022 Sight & Sound Poll — screened in one of the festival's unofficial sidebars: Directors' Fortnight. In fact, Akerman's...
14 days ago • 1 min read
Hello Reader, You are receiving this as a paying subscriber to The Globetrotting Watchlist (which includes Film Adventurer and Cinephile Members), a monthly newsletter that helps you expand your cinematic horizons through streaming recommendations for the best socially progressive under-the-radar films worldwide. Your support helps us pay our expenses to keep Seventh Row, a non-profit, ad-free and online. What's Inside the Globetrotting Newsletter This month, I'm recommending: A queer wedding...
17 days ago • 8 min read
Hello Reader, Earlier this week, I sent out a note about how most of us haven't seen as many films from Africa as we have from any other country... ...but I only briefly mentioned why that's the case. It's not because we're bad international movie lovers. It concerns how the film industry works, how African films go from festival circuit to arthouse cinemas to VOD, and how movies make it onto our radar. Episode 170: Why is it so hard to see African films? So today on the podcast, I go deep...
18 days ago • 1 min read
Hello Reader, Hit reply to let me know where you sit on Cronenberg (including, who on earth is Cronenberg anyway?)! As I talk about on today's podcast on Cronenberg's The Shrouds, I started out as a Cronenberg skeptic. What had trickled down to me about Cronenberg was that he made horror movies, often body horror movies, often about psycho-sexual things. Although I've liked plenty of films that fit into each of these categories, none of them are my go-to favourite genres. I pretty much...
25 days ago • 3 min read
Hello Reader, Last weekend, I went to see Andrew Ahn's new film The Wedding Banquet (2025) which updates and reimagines Ang Lee's 1993 queer classic for a 2025 audience. Admittedly, I was a little skeptical. Much as I liked Lee's film and Ahn's feature debut Spa Night, I wondered...do we really need to revive this rather dated story 30 years later? But I went to see it because, if nothing else, I will watch anything with Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon, Certain Women, and Lockdown...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
