On Sunday night at 9:15 pm, I filed into the InsideOut screening of Allan Deberton’s Gugu’s World, a Brazilian film about an 11-year-old queer boy growing up with his doting but ailing grandmother — after his father couldn’t accept him as he is.

Earlier this year, the film premiered in the Berlinale’s Generation section — dedicated to films about young people, for young audiences — where it won the Crystal Bear for Best Film for audiences under 12.

So why was it screening at 9:15 pm?

And why had Toronto’s queer film festival, InsideOut, made so little effort to mark this film as one you absolutely could, and should, take the children in your life to?

I suspect it’s because queer film festivals haven’t historically imagined children as a primary audience.

For one thing: there didn't use to be quite so many queer films about children for children.

More importantly, when most queer film festivals were founded, they were imagined as vital political spaces for queer adults — and often one of the only places where queer stories of any kind, especially those with sexual content, could be screened.

Queer film festivals are still vital political spaces. But what these spaces can do is shifting as the world shifts — and as the films about queer people shift, too.

Some queer films are, of course, not for children. One of the best films at this year’s festival, Drunken Noodles, features a gay orgy and a character who makes needlework tableaux of explicit sex. (I interviewed the film’s director, Lucio Castro, at Cannes last year.)

Other queer films tackle subject matter from an adult perspective — the AIDS crisis, internalized homophobia, family rejection — that may not be aimed at younger viewers.

But Gugu’s World is exactly the kind of film that could make a child with similar experiences feel less alone — and nurture empathy among people who know children like this or might meet them.

It normalizes that an 11-year-old boy can love sparkles, football, and dancing with his friends who are all girls. And it reminds us that people in faraway places still have experiences that remind us of our own — even if the context is a little different.

Gugu’s World is also the kind of story many queer viewers will recognize — about a child forced to grow up too fast — even though, like most queer stories, you don't need to be queer for it to resonate.

Gugu has to care for his senile grandmother because asking an adult for help might mean losing the only caregiver who accepts him as he is.

And yet the film is full of joy. Gugu’s friends and grandmother love him exactly as he is, even when the wider world doesn’t. The film has dancing, jokes, makeovers, and food fights.

Gugu’s World isn’t a unicorn, either.

More and more queer films about young people — and suitable for young people — are being made.

Many premiere each year in Berlinale’s Generation program.

InsideOut is often the only place in Toronto where these films screen.

That makes the festival’s role especially meaningful: not just as a curator of queer cinema, but as one of the few institutions that could bring these stories to young audiences.

Last year, InsideOut screened Sandbag Dam (now on VOD), about two queer teenagers in a homophobic Croatian community, and The Nature of Invisible Things, about a trans girl in Brazil.

In 2024, its Centrepiece film was Young Hearts (now on VOD), an exquisite Belgian coming-of-age story about two 14-year-old boys who develop feelings for each other.

All three films premiered in Generation. None screened in Toronto again. To find them on VOD, you’d have to know to look.

It’s too late to see Gugu’s World at this year’s fest.

Fortunately, there’s still time to catch another wonderful queer film for teenagers this week: Black Burns Fast.

The South African coming-of-age story follows a Xhosa teenage girl navigating life at a historically white private school, where heteronormativity reigns and the white staff and students are still reluctant to reckon with the legacy of Apartheid.

(You can hear me talk about why the film is a landmark one on the podcast here.)

Black Burns Fast was a standout at this year’s Berlinale, and it’s available online in Ontario until May 31.

It is exactly the kind of film the young people in your life should get to see.

And if you aren’t in Ontario, seek out your local queer film festival.

Many happen during the summer.

They can be a beautiful way to introduce young people to international films about queer characters. Plus, not all of the films will be available later.

There’s something pretty powerful about a young person seeing a queer character their own age on screen — not later, once they know to look for it, but right when they need it.

But when young people get to see these films with the adults raising, teaching, and caring for them, queer stories become part of the world they get to grow up in, not something they have to discover later — if they even know to look for them at all.

Alex

P.S. If you happen to live in the SF Bay Area, Black Burns Fast, Gugu's World, and Drunken Noodles will all be screening at Frameline Film Festival next month. And you can expect them to make the rounds at other queer festivals, too. I'll be covering that fest, too, so stay tuned!