![\"FAMILIAR](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/FAMILIAR-TOUCH-Vera-Drew.jpg\")
\n\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\tVera Drew (\u201cThe People\u2019s Joker\u201d)<\/p>\n
\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection\t\t\t<\/p>\n
5. \u201cFamiliar Touch\u201d<\/strong> (dir. Sarah Friedland; film pictured above)<\/p>\n This was so beautiful. My grandfather had dementia, and this was one of the most humanistic and real things I\u2019ve ever seen to tackle it. Wept healing tears from start to finish. Gorgeous and stunning performance from Kathleen Chalfant. Crave and am in awe of this kind of cinema. Can\u2019t wait to see what Sarah does next.<\/p>\n 4. \u201cThe Serpent\u2019s Skin\u201d<\/strong> (dir. Alice Maio MacKay)<\/p>\n So gay, toxic, witchy, cunty, and cute. The lesbian \u201cBuffy\u201d story arc meets Gregg Araki and Kevin Smith. Alice\u2019s best film to date.<\/p>\n 3. \u201cOctober Crow\u201d<\/strong> (dir. Jack Haven)<\/p>\n The feel-good, heartwarming BDSM buddy comedy of the year. Just a slice of DIY heaven. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen something this raw\/unscripted\/low-budget that is also just so fuckin\u2019 \u2026 sweet. Like earnestly sweet. Nor have I ever seen kink and sex work portrayed so wholesomely.\u00a0I am sorry to use that word, but I just can\u2019t think of any other. It just removes any darkness or perversion from it, which only makes it feel more real and genuine in its portrayal of both. Like IDK man. Some of the sweetest\/wholesome connections I \u2014 and so many people I know \u2014 have had with others have been in the context of kink or roleplay dynamics, and I don\u2019t know that I\u2019ve ever seen that genuinely portrayed in a movie.<\/p>\n And gosh\u2026Alexandra McVicker and Peter Nolan Smith\u2026ugh. I could have watched hours of them together on screen. Just so much chemistry. Cinematic alchemy, man. So much more than an odd couple pairing. Just soulmates. Their dynamic feels so tender yet scummy and also\u2026safe? I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n It really took me back to the summer I worked with David Liebe Hart on \u201cI Love David.\u201d I was like 29, just starting hormones, so stoked to finally be directing something, trying to wrangle this crazy beautiful artist\/spiritual giant, helping him remember to take care of himself, having him take care of me\u2026he was the first one I came out to. This old man that I theoretically should have never been friends\/collaborators with, but was always destined to. There\u2019s something so special about the connections between a young artist and an old one. It\u2019s like a cosmic and holy thing, and maybe I was projecting, but I just felt that watching James and \u201cBella\u201d take care of each other in this movie.<\/p>\n Jack Haven is just a phenomenal artist, and I\u2019ve been a fan for such a long time, and it was so cool to watch them completely unchained and letting this come together with pure intuition. This whole thing sprung from the fact that a.) Jack was neighbors with Peter, a poet\/ex-bouncer who said, \u201cYou need to make a movie about me\u201d and also had a fatal health condition, and b.) Alexandria moved to NYC. This is what art can be: pure inspiration guided by friendship and care. The film feels unscripted and loose, but in a way that only makes it feel truer and more sincerely impactful. It just feels like these glimpses into real life that you wouldn\u2019t get from something more \u201cpolished.\u201d The fact that this screening was preceded by Deja Spears\u2019 docushort only added to that vibe.<\/p>\n Altogether, it just felt like two hours of home movies from another dimension. Also, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve seen a movie shot on iPhone since \u201cTangerine,\u201d and it\u2019s kind of fucking gorgeous to look at. The color. The frame rate. Not enough people are shooting cinema on their phones.<\/p>\n 2. \u201cCastration Movie Anthology II: The Best of Both Worlds\u201d<\/strong> (dir. Louise Weard)<\/p>\n Caught this movie while visiting NYC for a few days to work on prep for my next movie, so I\u2019ve gotten 12 hours of sleep in three days, and words are pointless for art this good. Louise is building a masterpiece, and I am just so in awe of her. I was so nervous about what this one would be. From what Louise described to me in the lead-up to watching it, I worried this installment would lack the heart, relatability, and heart of the first, and this worry was quickly assuaged about 30 minutes into the five-hour epic.<\/p>\n At its core, this is a movie about how hard it is to get housing and emotional security as a trans woman, that feeling of \u201cwhat now\u201d when you reach a certain point in your transition, and how much ketamine and a lack of empathy are killing our fucking community. And yet with every inch of its heavy tone and more challenging pace, this one was funnier than part one. It was also scarier. It\u2019s a horror movie.<\/p>\n You really feel the tagline of \u201ca trans woman in trouble\u201d during every frame of this film. The dread you feel is knowing that we\u2019re watching a very real story about how queer \u201ccommunity\u201d is useless in a town polluted by patriarchy, white supremacy, and sex trafficking. About how sometimes, in order to get closer to authenticity, we need to strip away the identity that\u2019s there. About how often we eat our own\u2026it\u2019s no mistake (nor small miracle) that in a movie also about our hyper-online\/quick-to-moralize-and-ostracize community\u2026 that the most humanized characters in this are played by stars Betsey Brown and Peter Vack\u2026that one of the most cruel and downright frightening trans characters in this (played by the brilliant Alex McVicker) is the one I felt the most for when the psychotic cult finally combusted\u2026that the MOST \u201ctrans movie\u2122\ufe0f\u201d arc this film has is basically \u201cwhat if \u2018After Hours\u2019 was about a detransitioner convincing a tgirl that she\u2019s a boy.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019d be a sin not to bring this up: Lex Walton and her performance in this is a fucking work of art. The journey in this is soul-wrenching. The gift she gave us (and herself) when she made this film with Louise is holy. Watching Circle go through what they go through was absolutely what I needed right now. The release of those tears during the haircut scene\u2026 ugh I got chills just typing that. Just the gorgeous heart of this movie. It\u2019s OK for us to want more. It\u2019s OK if you know there\u2019s a better way to live. Every human deserves secure housing and love and support. It\u2019s OK to know that you deserve more. You probably do. We all do. But without empathy and surrender to giving-before-receiving you\u2019ll probably never get it. And if you do, it won\u2019t last, and you\u2019ll end up in a cave filled with cum and hot dogs.<\/p>\n 1. \u201cCamp\u201d<\/strong> (dir. Avalon Fast)<\/p>\n To call Avalon Fast\u2019s newest film \u201cdreamy\u201d would be an understatement. This movie feels like a smear of time and space in a way that so few movies do. And for a film this seeped in vibes, it\u2019s a total and complete structural palindrome or something. Like an absolute and cohesive container of witchy sexy sisterhood druggie holy hell.<\/p>\n I\u2019m hesitant to put many words to the question before so many get to see this \u2014 all I\u2019ll say is it captures grief, growing, and the grief of growing so beautifully and sincerely. A movie that feels like summer ending and autumn beginning, losing so many people and gaining so many more, and soaking in the light of God by absolutely succumbing to the fire of the Devil.<\/p>\n It is no exaggeration that this has some of the most gorgeous cinematography I\u2019ve seen in a movie in fucking years. DP Eily Sprungman is clearly working with some sort of fucking dark magic on this one. Adored all of the performances in this, but the phenomenal standouts: Zola Grimmer, Lea Rose Sebastianis (I mean, maybe my favorite actor doing stuff right now, tbh), Ella Reece, and Aidan Laudersmith. The FX were so pretty and restrained\u2026 like there\u2019s such a magic to how *not* over the top it is, while feeling hyper real. Like truly aspirational. Going to be ripping this movie off in my next one lol. The world is a better place with Avalon Fast making movies. Just a brilliant and true soul putting real magic into her art. See this as soon as you can.<\/p>\n Other Favorite Performances of the Year
\u2013 Gil Gex<\/strong> in \u201cEbony & Ivory\u201d<\/strong>
\u2013 Marlon Wayans<\/strong> and Julia Fox<\/strong> in \u201cHim\u201d<\/strong>
\u2013 Jennifer Lawrence<\/strong> in \u201cDie My Love\u201d<\/strong>
\u2013 Josh Fadem<\/strong> in \u201cEvery Heavy Thing\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vera Drew (\u201cThe People\u2019s Joker\u201d) Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection 5. \u201cFamiliar Touch\u201d (dir. Sarah Friedland; film pictured…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[117674,18,117,19,17,327,23509],"class_list":{"0":"post-258773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-best-of-2025","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-one-battle-after-another"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115810833737765213","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}