Film picks: Love and Pride Film Festival, Italian Film Festival, Sin Nombre on Netflix

Bros stars (from left) Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane. PHOTO: UIP

13th Love and Pride Film Festival

This year’s edition of the festival dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community features films from the United States, Canada, Singapore, Taiwan and the United Kingdom.

The event will open with the American romantic comedy Bros (R21, 115 minutes, Oct 4, with a drag act by performer Vanda Miss Joaquim from 7pm, film starts at 8pm, opening night tickets at $40 for the public).

The film, billed as the first major studio romantic comedy to feature two gay men as leads, stars American comedian Billy Eichner as Bobby, a New York museum curator and podcaster. The relationship-avoiding singleton meets Aaron (Luke Macfarlane), the first man to break through Bobby’s emotional defences.

Where: Golden Village Grand, GV Suntec, GV VivoCity
MRT: Orchard/Promenade/HarbourFront
When: Oct 7 to 16, various times
Admission: $17 (public), $15 (GV members)
Info: https://str.sg/wrJF

Italian Film Festival

The film A Chiara stars Swamy Rotolo.. PHOTO: ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL

Presented by the Embassy of Italy in Singapore in collaboration with the Singapore Film Society and other organisations, the ongoing Italian Film Festival showcases the drama A Chiara (2021, NC16, 121 minutes, Saturday, 5.30pm).

It belongs to film-maker Jonas Carpignano’s series of films set in the southern Italian region of Calabria, a place beset by crime and poverty. Title character Chiara (Swamy Rotolo) is a teenager whose wholesome perception of her father is shattered after violent events occur close to home.

A Chiara was selected to screen at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in the Directors’ Fortnight section, where it won the Europa Cinemas Label for Best European Film.

Where: Projector X: Picturehouse, Level 5 The Cathay, 2 Handy Road
MRT: Dhoby Ghaut
When: Till Sunday, various times
Admission: $13.50, with concessions for full-time national servicemen, students, club members and others
Info: https://str.sg/wr3k

Sin Nombre (NC16)

Sin Nombre takes a documentary-like approach to visuals. PHOTO: PRIMARY PRODUCTIONS

95 minutes, Netflix, 4 stars

American film-maker Cary Joji Fukunaga has directed big projects, such as the James Bond thriller No Time To Die (2021) and the celebrated first season of the HBO crime thriller True Detective (2014). His debut feature is the 2009 Spanish-language crime saga Sin Nombre (or Nameless, in English), just added to Netflix.

It bears the trademarks seen in his later films, including a documentary-like approach to visuals, richly detailed settings and main characters questioning the cost of being good in a depraved world.

Winner of several critics’ awards and festival garlands, including one from the Sundance Film Festival for Best Directing, Sin Nombre details the gruelling journey made by an undocumented Honduran girl immigrating to the United States. Sayra (Paulina Gaitan) the traveller meets dangerous characters, including Mexican gangster Willy (Edgar Flores).

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