I don’t know if I’m just drawn to films / documentaries centred around queerness, but here I am watching two more documentaries about the struggle for rights and freedoms. Here are my 2025 Hot Docs nano-reviews:
Parade: Queer Acts of Love & Resistance 🇨🇦
IMDb | Rotten Tomatoes | NFB
How did we get here? Parade covers some of the most poignant snapshots of queer expression and queer resistance in Canadian history. Glimpses into each era, a vignette of heroes in the storied history of the pursuit of liberation. The triumphs, the fights, and successes… And the struggle, the villains, and systems that oppress. Seeing the struggle in the same streets I walk on today, but from 70 years ago, is a stark reminder of how precarious the steps that were taken, how the struggle continues today. Informative and impressive in breadth, my core complaint is that each story deserves to be told in even more depth. ★★★
Queer as Punk 🇲🇾
Punk is political. It’s counter culture, an inherent act of defiance. Regardless of how silly or absurd you go about it, and sometimes because of how silly it is, it makes the point all the clearer. The oppression of Malaysia’s queer community is a continuing struggle, one that Faris fights by mere act of existence. While narratively I think the documentary feels incomplete, the message is resonant and clear. Sh…Diam! Shut up and listen. We’re here, we’re queer, and you can’t stop us. ★★★
