'Eileen,' 'Fellow Travelers' & 'May December' To Premiere At NewFest

NewFest has announced the full lineup for their 35th anniversary festival and it’s making our queer hearts VERY happy!

The 2023 edition of the New York LGBTQ+ Festival is featuring a bevy of highly anticipated queer movies and TV shows. The New York premiere of the Colman Domingo starring Rustin will open the festival, with the British romance All of Us Strangers closing out the lineup.

Nyad, based on the true story of Diana Nyad who swam from Cuba to Florida and starring Annette Benning and Jodie Foster, will be the US Centerpiece film. And the festival’s International Centerpiece film will be the New York City premiere of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster, which took home Best Screenplay and the Queer Palm at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

There will also be advanced screenings of Showtime’s much-talked-about limited series Fellow Travelers starring Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey, which follows the love story and clandestine romance of two men who first meet in McCarthy-era Washington, and season two of Max’s heartwarming queer pirate show Our Flags Mean Death starring Rhys Darby and Taika Waititi.

This year the festival is screening 132 films from 26 different countries and will screen both in person and virtually. The festival has always been focused on inclusion, but this year they’ve stepped it up a notch with 56% of films being directed by women, non-binary, trans and two-spirit filmmakers and 71% made 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.”

Director Todd Haynes will receive the 2023 NewFest Queer Visionary Award on Oct. 19, followed by a special screening of Haynes’ new film May December. Starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, the director’s newest outing follows the story of an actress who goes to Savannah, Georgia to research a part for a new film about a married couple’s tabloid-romance past.

Director William Oldroyd’s Eileen will make its New York debut during the festival. The adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh’s award-winning novel stars Thomasin McKenzie as a young secretary who becomes enamored with the glamorous new counselor, played by Anne Hathaway, at the prison where she works.

The Documentary Centerpiece Beyond the Aggressives: 25 Years Later is a follow-up to 2005’s The Aggressives, about four queer masculine-presenting BIPOC people. Also being screened are Emma Fidel’s documentary Queen of New York, 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.

We feel spoiled by all of the amazing LGBTQ+ films and television shows appearing at NewFest this year!