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Cannes Queer Palm winner set for wide release in US

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Adèle Haenel and Noémie Merlant in ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ (Image courtesy of NEON)

“Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” the highly lauded winner of the Queer Palm prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, is getting a wider release than originally planned.

The lush period romance was edged out of the competition to become France’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2019 Oscar, but the movie’s US distributor, NEON, remains confident enough in filmmaker Céline Sciamma’s lesbian love story to book it for the kind of wide release that few non-English-language films receive.

The Cannes contender is set for limited one-week theatrical run next month in Los Angeles and New York, standard operating procedure for most “arthouse” movies before they make the jump to streaming and home video formats. That release will still begin on December 6, as originally planned, but NEON has announced it will now also roll out “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”  in wide release – that means everywhere – on Valentine’s Day 2020, the perfect date to entice cinemaphiles with a taste for romance on a holiday devoted to love.

NEON’s official synopsis for the film reads: “In 18th century France, a young painter, Marianne (Noémie Merlant), is commissioned to do the wedding portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) without her knowing. Therefore, Marianne must observe her model by day to paint her portrait at night. Day by day, the two women become closer as they share Héloïse’s last moments of freedom before the impending wedding.”

In addition to winning the Queer Palm at Cannes, the movie, which is Sciamma’s fourth feature, was also awarded the festival’s Best Screenplay award. It has been exceptionally well-reviewed, and holds an impressive 98% critics’ approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

In announcing their new release plan for the widely-anticipated queer romance, NEON also dropped a new teaser trailer.

You can also watch the original, longer US trailer below.

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Celebrity News

More than 1 million people attend Madonna concert in Rio

Free event took place on Copacabana Beach on Saturday

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Madonna performs on Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana Beach on May 4, 2024. (Screen capture via Reuters YouTube)

An estimated 1.6 million people on Saturday attended Madonna’s free concert on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach.

The concert, which was the last one as part of Madonna’s Celebration Tour, included a tribute to people lost to AIDS.

Bob the Drag Queen introduced Madonna before the concert began. Pabllo Vittar, a Brazilian drag queen and singer, and Anitta, a bisexual pop star who was born in Rio’s Honório Gurgel neighborhood, also joined Madonna on stage.

Congresswoman Erika Hilton, a Black travesti and former sex worker, and Rio Municipal Councilwoman Mônica Benício, the widow of Marielle Franco, a bisexual Rio Municipal Councilwoman who was assassinated in 2018, are among those who attended the concert.

“Madonna showed that we fight important fights for the human rights of Black (people), young (people), women and LGBTQIA+ people, and against all injustice, discrimination, and violence,” said Associaçao Nacional de Travestis e Transexuais (National Association of Travestis and Transsexuals), a Brazilian trans rights group known by the acronym ANTRA, on its X account. “What they call identitarianism’ is our subversion to the retrograde and conservative tackiness that plagues the country.”

The Associated Press reported the concert was Madonna’s biggest ever.

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PHOTOS: Gay Day at the Zoo

Smithsonian observs International Family Equality Day

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Gay Day at the Zoo (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The DC Center for the LGBTQ Community, SMYAL and Rainbow Families sponsored Gay Day at the Zoo on Sunday at the Smithsonian National Zoo. The Smithsonian observed International Family Equality Day with special exhibits and an event space.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

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PHOTOS: Taste of Point

Annual fundraiser held for LGBTQ youth scholarship, mentorship organization

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Taste of Point DC (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The Point Foundation held its annual Taste of Point fundraiser at Room & Board on May 2.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

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