New York, NY – This June, Film Movement Plus honors Pride Month with a curated slate of bold, boundary-pushing premieres from around the world — cinema that challenges norms, amplifies queer voices, and explores identity through deeply personal and politically resonant storytelling. From the windswept beaches of Southern Thailand to the storm-battered islands of the Philippines, Film Movement Plus brings together five LGBTQ+ films that confront tradition, celebrate resistance, and illuminate the universal quest for selfhood.
Kicking off the month on June 6 is the haunting and lyrical SOLIDS BY THE SEASHORE, a mesmerizing Thai drama that blends romance, folklore, and environmental commentary as two women form a bond that risks everything in a coastal town under cultural and ecological pressure. The following Friday (June 13), audiences can stream ASOG, Sean Devlin’s genre-bending, darkly funny docufiction set in post-typhoon Philippines; anchored by themes of drag, disaster, and dignity, it’s a love letter to queer resilience in the face of injustice.
Pride Month on the platform continues with the critically acclaimed 20,000 SPECIES OF BEES (June 13), a Spanish-Basque coming-of-age story that tenderly captures a young girl’s gender journey and a family’s path toward acceptance. Other premieres include CHAMBERMAID, a historical lesbian romance set against the upheaval of World War I-era Europe, and THE EXTREMISTS’ OPERA, a provocative and self-reflexive Japanese indie about obsession, power, and art on the fringes.
Other June premieres includes Jessica Hausner’s fearless, blackly comic satire, CLUB ZERO, starring Mia Wasikowska, Chia Chee Sum’s OASIS OF NOW and LET ME GO, the audacious, award-winning debut of Swiss filmmaker Maxime Rappaz, lensed by Dardenne Brothers long-time collaborator Benoît Dervaux.
Friday, June 6 FM+ PREMIERE: CLUB ZERO Director Jessica Hausner
At an international boarding school, an unassuming, yet rigorous, Miss Novak (Mia Wasikowska) joins the teaching staff to instruct a new class on “conscious eating.” Her impressionable teenage students each have their own reasons for joining the class – to improve fitness, reduce their carbon footprint, or get extra credit. Although early lectures focus on mindful consumption, Miss Novak’s discussions soon become increasingly disordered and extreme. A suspicious headmistress (Sidse Babett Knudsen), concerned parents and the failing health of her students lead everyone to question the inscrutable Miss Novak’s motivations for teaching the class. As a few devoted pupils fall deeper under her cult-like tutelage, they are given a new, even more sinister goal to aspire to – joining the ominous “Club Zero.”
Combining a pitch-black comedic sensibility with elements of body horror, CLUB ZERO satirizes contemporary inclinations toward myopic insularity and blind faith brought on by anxieties regarding food, consumerism and environmental catastrophe. “Riddled with uncomfortable dialogue, audacious sequences, and a piercing score,” this “perfect film for our times” (MovieWeb), which had its world premiere in competition at Cannes and was a Best Picture nominee at both the Sitges and Munich International Film Festivals, is the latest from Austrian writer/director Jessica Hausner, one of Europe’s most fearless and provocative auteurs that had critics talking around the globe with Patrice Witherspoon of Screen Rant saying, “Club Zero has all the ingredients to become a future cult classic…it includes brilliant commentary on the dangers of following blindly, and it provides great entertainment…Club Zero will keep you talking.” (2023 | 110 minutes)
FM+ PRIDE MONTH EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE: SOLIDS BY THE SEASHORE
Director Patiparn Boontarig
In a small Southern Thai town, where a once-pristine beach has been replaced by rugged sea walls to hold back the rising tides, two young women cross paths. Shati, a devout Muslim from a conservative family, lives a life guided by tradition and restraint. Fon, a former activist turned visual artist, arrives in town for her latest exhibition, bringing with her a spirit of defiance and change. As their connection deepens, Shati finds herself torn between longing and loyalty—her growing feelings for Fon clash with the strict cultural values she was raised to uphold, where same-sex love is forbidden.
Haunted by the cautionary folktales told by her late grandmother—stories of love, danger, and the supernatural—Shati begins to experience eerie, inexplicable events that echo those childhood tales. On Fon’s final night in town, as a storm approaches, the line between reality and myth blurs. In the midst of fear, memory, and desire, Shati reaches a turning point. Whether in a dream or waking life, she must choose: remain confined by the past or embrace her truth and step into the unknown. A festival favorite, SOLIDS BY THE SEASHORE captured the New Currents Award & NETPAC Award at the Busan International Film Festival (2023 | 93 minutes | Thai, Southern Thai with English Subtitles)
Friday, June 13 FM+ PRIDE MONTH EXCLUSIVE STREAMING PREMIERE: ASOG
Director Sean Devlin
A bold and genre-defying docufiction, ASOG reimagines the road movie through a queer, political, and climate-conscious lens. Set in the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines, the film follows Jaya, a former TV host turned public school teacher, who leaves behind an unfulfilling relationship to pursue their long-suppressed dream of becoming a drag performer. Their goal: to compete in the “Ms. Gay Sicogon” Pageant, an event that symbolizes both personal liberation and communal celebration. On their journey, Jaya unexpectedly reunites with Arnel, a former student who is traveling to find his estranged father. The two form an unlikely but heartfelt companionship as they travel across typhoon-ravaged landscapes, encountering fellow survivors and everyday citizens grappling with grief, displacement, and resilience. Through these encounters—both real and imagined—the boundaries between fiction and documentary dissolve, revealing deeper truths about climate injustice, poverty, queer identity, and the strength found in community.
Directed by Seán Devlin, a Juno-nominated comedian and consulting producer on Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm, ASOG artfully weaves humor, vulnerability, and political critique into a rich cinematic tapestry. Executive produced by Adam McKay (The Big Short), Alan Cumming (The Good Wife), and Joel Kim Booster (Fire Island), the film has resonated deeply with global audiences, earning over 10 international awards and screening at major festivals including Tribeca, SXSW Sydney, and the Warsaw International Film Festival. Described as “essential viewing as queer cinema, as political cinema and as climate cinema” (Eastern Kicks), ASOG is a powerful affirmation of joy, resistance, and the human capacity to find light even in the darkest of times. It is as funny as it is moving, as dreamlike as it is grounded—an extraordinary hybrid of truth and imagination that celebrates those too often left out of both history and cinema. (2023 | 101 minutes | Tagalog, Filipino with English Subtitles)
FM+ PRIDE MONTH PREMIERE: 20,000 SPECIES OF BEES Director Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren
In a small, sleepy village in the Basque Country, a sculptor named Ane and her three children arrive at her mother Lita’s home for summer vacation where they are surrounded by extended family and nosy neighbors. Ane and her mother’s relationship is strained — Lita disapproves of her daughter’s frayed marriage, career as an artist, and the way she parents her obstinate and mischievous children. Chief among them is eight-year-old Aitor, nicknamed Coco after it becomes clear that being referred to by Aitor elicits feelings of distress. Born biologically male, neither his birth name nor the genderless nickname feel quite right, and Ane’s concern for her child grows as Coco becomes more withdrawn. The child’s only respite lies in the Basque hills, where Ane’s aunt Lourdes tends to the family’s beekeeping farm. Among the peaceful humming of bees and Lourdes’ open-minded guardianship, Coco slowly begins to confide in family and friends her discomfort in her body, eventually voicing a desire to be treated as a girl. As Coco explores her own developing identity over the summer, Ane and the rest of her family in turn must learn to accept the child as she is.
Basque director Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren’s assured debut feature is a wonderfully sensitive work carried by the Berlinale Silver Bear winning lead performance of newcomer Sofía Otero; the film also captured Best Film Awards at both the Seattle and Hamptons International Film Festivals and a Best Director Goya for Saloaguren. An authentic and heart-wrenching story of transition, 20,000 SPECIES OF BEES, is “one of the most sensitive, honest, and easily recollectable on-screen portrayals of gender dysphoria and growing up trans.” (In Review Online) and “an engaging, authentic, moving film about the way society persists in seeing monsters where there are none.” (Screen Daily). (2023 | 123 minutes | Spanish, Basque, French with English Subtitles)
Friday, June 20
FM+ EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE: OASIS OF NOW
Director Chia Chee Sum Within the quiet confines of a Kuala Lumpur apartment building, the hidden lives of undocumented workers come into subtle focus. Among them is Hanh, a Vietnamese migrant, juggling her roles as a cleaner and caretaker while longing for the daughter she left behind. Her daily routine may seem ordinary, but beneath the surface, Hanh’s life is a delicate balance – surviving in a city that depends on her labor yet keeps her on the margins. As she moves through this enclosed world, her story becomes one of quiet resilience and the enduring hope of finding her place. The debut feature of Malaysian filmmaker Chia Chee Sum draws inspiration from his own experiences as a stepchild, growing up in the same apartment that the film was shot in. Working with a largely non-professional cast, improvised dialogue, and still cinematography, Chia crafts a deeply emotional narrative that reflects the delicate balance between resilience and invisibility, addressing themes of displacement, alienation, and the complex realities of life as an outsider. (2023 | 90 minutes | Cantonese, Vietnamese, Malay and Mandarin with English Subtitles)
FM+ PRIDE MONTH PREMIERE: CHAMBERMAID Director Mariana Cengel-Solcanská
On the brink of the First World War, fifteen-year-old Anka is sent from her Slovakian village to work as a maid in a wealthy Prague household. Once there, the insecure newcomer is charged with looking after Resi, the family’s difficult daughter, enduring episode after episode of cruelty and humiliation at her hand. Soon though, Anka begins to see cracks in Resi’s tough surface, uncovering hidden family secrets. As war shatters the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the two women find solace in each other amid a world ruled by patriarchy and conflict, forging an intimate bond simmering with love and desire which transcends the two women’s class divide.
Nominated for the Best Feature Film at The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival, Jeremy Clarke of D Movies writes, “…part British television drama Upstairs Downstairs, part illicit lesbian romance, this film… deliver[s] a story full of fearless performances which… constantly disturbs and surprises.” (2022 | 110 minutes | Czech, Slovak, German, Hungarian with English Subtitles)
FM+ PRIDE MONTH PREMIERE: THE EXTREMISTS’ OPERA Director Junko Emoto
The semi-biographical THE EXTREMISTS’ OPERA follows the everyday and inner struggles of a women-only alternative theater group delivering explosive and politically controversial explosive stage performances under the control of tough mannered theater director Naoko (Saori). When auditions are held for the first production of her newly established troupe, Naoko is mesmerized by Haru (Arisa Nakamura), who barges into the old garage where they rehearse. Naoko chooses Haru to be the lead as she leverages her power as director to pursue the romantic connection that fuels her voracious creativity. However, as opening night approaches, jealous entanglements threaten the artistic and ideological aims of the project, as well as the relationship with Haru, pulling Naoko from her womanizing ways.
Based on her own semi-autobiographical novel Kokan, cult theater director and actress Junko Emoto makes her directorial debut in this playful drama relishing the toil and passion of a struggling creative life on and off stage. (2016 | 90 minutes | Japanese with English Subtitles)
Friday, June 27 FM+ PREMIERE: LET ME GO Director Maxime Rappaz
In the Swiss alps, seamstress Claudine (Jeanne Balibar) has a risqué arrangement at the local hotel. In exchange for a tip, the concierge provides her with intel on the available bachelors on brief stays who she pursues for quick sexual trysts. After repeat chance encounters with an attractive German photographer, an unlikely connection is formed. “A fascinating examination of the human condition,” LET ME GO, which had its World Premiere in 2023 in Cannes ACID, captured the Audience Award at the Vancouver International Film Festival and was nominated for Best Film in the 2024 Swiss Film Prize Awards, sensually evokes the complexities of self-liberation and redefinition in “one of the year’s most audacious debuts” (International Cinephile Society), shot by acclaimed cinematographer, Benoît Dervaux, a long-standing collaborator of the Dardenne brothers. (2023 | 92 minutes | French with English Subtitles)
About FILM MOVEMENT PLUS
FILM MOVEMENT PLUS (www.filmmovementplus.com) opens up a world of provocative, compelling and award-winning films. Priced at $5.99 per month with a free 7-day trial, the SVOD subscription service, currently available as a Prime Video Channel and on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Android TV, mobile (iOS and Android), Chromecast, and most Samsung Smart TVs, offers consumers immediate access to festival favorite movies from around the world, including a growing catalog of acclaimed films not available anywhere else. New films are added weekly. Classics from the Film Movement catalog include Sergio Corbucci’s iconic 1968 Spaghetti Western, THE GREAT SILENCE, Marleen Gorris’ landmark Oscar-winning film ANTONIA’S LINE, and much more.
