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Latest reviews

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  Departures

  Review preview for Departures

  There is plenty here for viewers to relate to, whether or not they’ve ever gone to those extremes. There’s also an ample supply of humour, with laugh-out-loud moments occurring in the bleakest situations.

  Benji meets Jake at an airport check-out gate and is immediately intrigued. Jake is fit, elusive, dominant and, as Benji happily suspects, ‘a bit gay’. Cue monthly getaways to Amsterdam, a lot of sex and the creeping emergence of a doomed power dynamic.
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  Night Stage

  Review preview for Night Stage

  The film is shot in gorgeous shades of noir by Luciana Baseggio, and has a deliciously dark, sultry score.

  An actor and a politician start an affair and discover a fetish for having sex in public places. The closer they get to their dreams, the more risk taking they become.
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  Hot Milk

  Review preview for Hot Milk

  Mackey is a simmering, sullen, potent lead, keeping viewers on edge even as she lounges in the sun.

  Rose and her daughter Sofia journey to a Spanish seaside town to meet an enigmatic healer. As Sofia embraces an affair with an alluring stranger, tensions with her overbearing mother threaten their fragile bond.
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  Peaches Goes Bananas

  Review preview for Peaches Goes Bananas

  Shot over 17 years, it mingles intimate personal moments with visceral concert footage, its musical sequences knitted together with some of the best editing you’re likely to see this year.

  From sold-out concerts to family moments with her parents and sister, the passage of time brings loss but also provides liberation for an artist whose body is a canvas for artistic expression.
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  Lakeview

  Review preview for Lakeview

  Thorne still comes across as being at the stage where many aspects of her work are experimental. She’s yet to settle into her style.

  Darcy, a bisexual woman, is divorcing her husband. Her close friends all arrive at her parents’ lakeside house, ready to see her through this major life development. However, everyone is distracted by their own dramas, relationships and personal milestones.
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  Fatherhood

  Review preview for Fatherhood

  Despite the anger at the unfairness of what has gone before, this is ultimately a warm-hearted, life-affirming film.

  Between 1979 and 2016, trans people in Norway were forced to undergo sterilisation, depriving them of their right to bear children. Kris has dreamed of becoming a father since kindergarten. Together with his partners Sindre and David, he becomes a part of the resistance forging change.
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  I'm Your Venus

  Review preview for I'm Your Venus

  From the start, there is something different about this film.

  Documentary considering the unsolved murder of Paris Is Burning star Venus Xtravaganza.
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  Summer's Camera

  Review preview for Summer's Camera

  Sung’s own camera plays tricks, placing objects too close in the foreground so that parts of an image are out of focus, like an incomplete memory.

  Summer refuses to shoot the unfinished roll of film in her father’s camera. That is, until she finds herself captivated by Yeon-woo, her school’s football star. But when the roll is developed, Summer discovers her father’s own high-school relationship with Maru, a local hairdresser.
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  Really Happy Someday

  Review preview for Really Happy Someday

  The film hinges on amazing vocal work by Lalama.

  Once a rising star of musical theatre, a young man has to find his voice, career and identity all over again after his transition.
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  Onda Nova

  Review preview for Onda Nova

  Throughout the film there is a sense of play, and even as the story evolves to take on darker material, something of that lightness, that happy-go-lucky quality remains.

  The sheer existence of newly formed football team Gayvotas means defiance in a repressed society that despises them. For these women, modesty is a stranger, liberation reigns supreme and sexuality is fluid – their lives presenting a gloriously free alternative to the oppressive regime.

A–Z of Flare 2025 reviews →

Features

• The film that went too far
  Francisco Martins and Julia Duarte on the 32 year journey of Onda Nova
• Finding his voice
  J Stevens and Breton Lalama on singing, changing voices and Really Happy Someday
• Love on the borderline
  Onir on bringing queer narratives to Indian cinema, and We Are Faheem & Karun
• Bringing it all together
  Tara Thorne on telling lesbian stories, ensemble filmmaking and Lakeview