Here's what's queer at the 2023 Hot Docs film fest

Hot Docs Film Festival is celebrating 30 years this year, and is back on the big screen from April 27 to May 7.

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With the help of our friends at Hot Docs we've rounded up the queer films at the festival this year, and there are some goodies. Of course check out the full lineup for all kinds of docs about things that you might love, but these queer films hold a special place in our hearts.
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A Happy Man

"Marvin, a creative writer, and Ivan, a psychiatrist, relocated to Sweden from the Czech Republic, where they settled and began raising their family. In 2018, Marvin came out as a transgender man ... the film follows intimate conversations between the couple, who have been together for over 15 years."

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‍Anhell69

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"A transgenre film “without borders, without gender” that represents something radical in terms of documentary form, queerness and the ways in which interiority is represented on the screen...this Colombian film is a visual eulogy for the city as cemetery, a gay ghost town in the mountains embalmed in the fears of an annihilated generation and nation."

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Calls From Moscow

"Calls from Moscow is the beautifully muted, melancholy debut feature by Cuban filmmaker Luis Alejandro Yero... Set inside a Moscow flat inhabited by four queer Cubans, whose cultural alienation by nature of their sexuality and foreignness is compounded by sub-zero temperatures and the spectre of war."

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‍It's Only Life After All

A wild look back over the career of legendary lesbian duo, The Indigo Girls. From the early years to the present, reflecting on their struggles, successes, inner demons, and unwavering activism and engagement.

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Má Sài Gòn (Mother Saigon)

"Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (lovingly still called Saigon by locals), is a city as colourful, charming, and contradictory as the people who call it home. Focusing on its LGBTQ+ community, this ode to a place and its people draws on a mosaic of characters to give life to a unique cinematic portrait."

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Much Ado About Dying

"When filmmaker Simon Chambers is suddenly called back to London from India to care for his dying uncle, David, he is wholly unprepared for the madcap journey to follow. Told that he has just one month to live, David, an eccentric gay actor who is always “on,” constantly reciting lines and performing different characters, suddenly improves once the camera starts rolling."

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‍The Stroll

"In this essential project of reunion and reminiscence, the history of New York City’s Meatpacking District is told from the perspective of those trans people and people of colour who walked “The Stroll” as sex workers. Filmmaker Kristen Lovell, herself a fixture on the 14th Street scene for a decade, is on a mission to tell the story of the neighbourhood and its trans denizens before they’re gone."

Hot Cocks

OK, not a documentary, but Hot Cocks the the ONLY queer dance party associated with the festival. A celebration of queer cinema, this party has been running for 12 years and this year will feature the Electric Circus musical stylings of Vanessa Magic and Pamm, as well as a show from the otherworldly - Yovska. It's a fun, sexy night of queer dancing and flirting. Click here to grab advance tickets!

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Grab Hot Docs tickets here.