Kyle Saavedra

Earlier this month, the Tribeca Festival celebrated its 25th anniversary in lower Manhattan, bringing over 100 feature films and short film programs to multiple venues. For those attending this year, the selection felt much quieter in comparison to previous iterations as very few premieres made a splash beyond the downtown crowds.

Pride month might officially start on June 1, but for the New York City-based NewFest, the celebration of all things queer in film and media began early on May 28 at the charming SVA Theater. With their sixth edition of the annual film series, NewFest upped the stakes with a selection that ranged from intimate documentary portraits about past and present queer icons to recent festival smashes such as Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex and Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex & Death at Camp Miasma.

How useful are you to the people in your life? If you spend as much time languishing over existential dread as most of us seem to do these days, you may have taken stock of your worth amidst fellow go-getters, girlbosses, and other ambitious types in-between. At times, it feels like we are running a race to the bottom, never reflecting on what we truly want or focusing on what brings us joy.