Nyle DiMarco hits Sundance with Deaf President Now!

Deaf queer model, actor, and author Nyle DiMarco won his cycle of America’s Next Top Model and his season of Dancing With the Stars, was an Academy Award-nominated producer of the 2021 documentary short Audible, and has now co-directed a feature documentary with Davis Guggenheim (Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie) called Deaf President Now! It recounts an important piece of deaf culture history that took place at Gallaudet University, a school for deaf students, in Washington, D.C.

In the late ’80s, the lone hearing candidate for university president was selected, sparking a wave of student protests that succeeded in breaking down barriers. What will make this documentary different is what its creators are calling “Deaf Point of View,” which will use American Sign Language as its principle language and will approach visuals and sound design in a way that helps hearing audiences better understand the perspective of the deaf community. The film premieres at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival with distribution to follow from Apple Original Films.

Sean Hayes, Katy O’Brian, and Lee Pace run to Stephen King

There’s a remake of the 1987 film The Running Man on the block. Long before The Hunger Games we had this earlier dystopian vision of a future where people competed to survive and professional killers tracked them (and it may be due to the success of Hunger Games that this one has sprung back to paranoid life).

The earlier adaptation of the Stephen King (er… “Richard Bachman”) novel starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, and this one has movie star-of-the-moment Glen Powell (Twisters) alongside Josh Brolin, CODA star Emilia Jones, and queer actors Katy O’Brian, Lee Pace, and Will & Grace alum Sean Hayes. Will all this queer talent translate into any sort of LGBTQ narrative within the larger story? No one’s telling. And frankly, we just like to see this many gays with jobs in one place. Look for it next November.

Murray Hill to host King of Drag

It’s time, really, for the drag kings to get their own reality competition, now that RuPaul’s Drag Race has become an institution and rite of passage for many drag queens who want to step up to the next level of their careers. And who better to host it than Somebody Somewhere star Murray Hill, whose trans masc life informed that wonderful HBO series’ narrative, and whose talents as a bon vivant are evident every time he hits the stage.

The show is called King of Drag and the first six-episode season will feature eight drag king performers competing for the title. And because the kings are not the same as the queens, the competitive aspect will focus more on those differences than the usual reality show challenges. In other words, don’t expect what you’ve seen before. It premieres this spring on the LGBTQ streaming platform Revry.

Janis Ian keeps Breaking Silence

Perhaps you’re young enough to think “Janis Ian” is merely the name of a character from Mean Girls. Well, you’re wrong. She’s an actual queer icon, whose provocative hit singles of the late 1960s and into the ’70s – “Society’s Child” and “At Seventeen” — pushed audiences to deal with pop that was thoughtful and wise. Coming out as a lesbian well before it was career-safe to do so was yet another risk she took. Therefore, it’s fitting now, after all these years, that the legend gets her flowers.

Breaking Silence, a documentary from Varda Bar-Kar, features the singer-songwriter reviewing her own life, as well as a host of her peers extolling her significance: artists like Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Lily Tomlin, Kathy Mattea, Jean Smart, and Laurie Metcalf, among others. If you’re a long-time fan, it’ll be a sweet reminder of the musician you love, and if you’re new to this real-life Janis Ian, it’ll be a great place to get acquainted. It opens at an arthouse near you in March 2025.

Romeo San Vicente learned the truth at seventeen.