PoC queer movies rec list
@p-trichor and I were talking today about how cool it is that Heated Rivalry has gotten this popular, considering it's a gay show with an Asian protagonist and love interest, and it got us wanting to do a rec list of queer movies with PoC main characters. I hope you don't mind me jumping the gun, dude, I just got excited!
(Also, this list is making me realize I watch veeeery few US movies)
Suk Suk. One of my favourite movies, period. Pak, a 60-something taxi driver, meets a man at a gay cruising spot and they start a relationship even though Pak is married and Hoi lives with his extremely religious son. Meanwhile, the local LGBT+ elders group is debating whether to uncloset themselves to ask for a gay nursing home.
What kind of PoC? It's set in Hong Kong, so everyone is East Asian.
Rafiki. Kena and Ziki are the daughters of two rival local election candidates. After a chance encounter they become friends, and then more, while hiding it from friends and family. I love the music and the photography in this one in particular.
What kind of PoC? It's a Kenyan movie, so everyone is very Black.
Baby. After getting out of juvie, Wellington finds out that his parents have moved without leaving behind an address. Left to fend for himself in the streets of São Paulo, he gets taken in by Ronaldo, an older male sex worker, who will act as his mentor and his lover.
What kind of PoC? Most of the cast is that kind of mixed race that is so common in lower classes in Brazil. Wellington (Baby) is definitely at least part black, and I wouldn't try to guess Ronaldo's racial profile, but that man is not 100% white. There's also a group of mostly Black young friends of Baby, and Ronaldo's ex is a Black woman with a white wife.
RENT. Do I have to introduce RENT to people following a musicals blog on the gay platform? This musical follows a group of bohemian artists in early 90s New York over a year of their lives.
What kind of PoC? This movie has an ensemble cast, and it has two Black USers, one Afrolatina, one Latino, and do the two white Jewish actors count as PoC?
Depends on your definition of "person of colour", I guess
Luciérnagas. Ramín, a Iranian refugee, is stuck in a small port in Mexico, wishing he could go back to Turkey to his boyfriend. Meanwhile, he makes friends with Leti, his landlady, who teaches him Spanish, and Guillermo, a Salvadorian coworker whose goal is to move to the US by any means necessary.
What kind of PoC? In the current political climate, are Iranians and white Central Americans PoC? I'd say they are.
Almamula. After he gets beaten up by the kids in his home town for being gay, Nino and his family move to the Argentinian countryside where his father works. Worryingly though, a teenager has just disappeared, and the local folklore blames the Almamula, a mythical woman who takes away the sexually impure. Queer horror movie about religious trauma.
What kind of PoC? Depending on the lighting, I cannot tell if the main actor has Indigenous blood or not; and thankfully, being a kid, there isn't a lot of information about him online. It's a good movie either way.
Movies I have been recommended but I haven't watched yet
Mea Culpa. A young gay man is living in Belgium when he discovers his family is not Lebanese like he thought, but Palestinian refugees.
Big Eden. Lighthearted romcom, for once! A gay New York artist has to go back home to take care of his grandfather and confront his old feelings for his highschool crush while the people in town try to matchmake him with the shy Native American shopkeeper (played by a Native American!).
All Shall Be Well. I'm so excited about this one, it's the same director and a few of the actors of Suk Suk. A lesbian couple have been openly living together for decades, entirely welcomed in Pat's family, when Pat dies and it is revealed that by law, everything goes to her blood family. Will her family take care of her widow?
Neirud. A documentary about the director's "aunt", a woman who was always next to her grandma but noone knew who she was related to, and who died leaving no traces of her past.
Special shoutout to Emilia Pérez, a movie I cannot in good conscience recommend, but which had something I don't think I've ever seen before: a middle-aged, visibly Indigenous lesbian, portrayed as loving and beautiful and the pillar of goodness in the movie, in a relationship with a trans woman.
