No Money No Honey by Nicole Costa
The 38th Annual NewFest, New York's LGBTQ+ Film Festival, returns October 15–25, bringing queer cinema from around the world to theaters across Manhattan (SVA Theatre, The LGBT Community Center), Brooklyn (BAM Cinemas, Nitehawk Prospect Park), and Queens (Museum of the Moving Image), as well as online nationwide through October 30. This year's lineup features a strong selection of films from Latin America, spanning narrative and documentary features, a Legacy Film, and several shorts programs. Cinema Tropical is a community partner.
Among the festival's Latin American selections are new films from Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Puerto Rico, alongside a Brazilian co-production set in Nepal and a virtual screening of the acclaimed documentary Chavela. Together, these films explore LGBTQ+ identity through stories of family, desire, migration, memory, violence, and self-discovery.
Brazilian cinema has a particularly strong presence in NewFest38's Narrative Features section, with three very different films exploring queer identity, desire, and belonging. Gugu's World / Feito Pipa, directed by Allan Deberton, follows eleven-year-old Gugu, an aspiring soccer player who lives under the loving care of his grandmother, Dilma. Their home beside the Araújo Lima Reservoir becomes a protective space for Gugu, shielding him from the disapproval of his father and the surrounding community.
As the reservoir dries up and Dilma's health begins to deteriorate, Gugu confronts the possibility of losing the world that has allowed him to grow into himself. Featuring a remarkable performance by Yuri Gomes, the film is a vibrant coming-of-age story about a young queer boy and the unconditional love that gives him room to be himself. Winner of the Crystal Bear at the Berlinale, Gugu's World was selected as Brazil's submission for Best International Feature at the 99th Academy Awards.
Also from Brazil, I Am Going to Miss You / Eu Vou Ter Saudades de Você marks the return of Daniel Ribeiro, the director of the Berlinale Teddy Award winner The Way He Looks / Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho, the film that launched his career. His new romantic drama centers on Amanda and Caio, a trans couple who move in together after seven years of being together. As the intimacy of everyday life exposes differences between them, their relationship begins to fracture, forcing them to reconsider both their shared future and their individual identities. Set in a gender-affirming Brazil—including the election of the country's first trans woman president—Ribeiro's film approaches transness as an ordinary and integral part of everyday life.
Another Brazilian title, The Riverbank / A Margem do Rio, by Enock Carvalho and Matheus Farias, is a nocturnal queer thriller set among the rivers and mangroves of Recife. Izaquiel, who works as a cleaner during the day, ventures into the forest at night in search of secret encounters. When he meets Jeremias, a magnetic fisherman, desire quickly turns into a dangerous journey through seduction and violence. The directors' feature debut received the Special Jury Prize at the 2026 Locarno Film Festival.
Mexican filmmaker David Pablos returns with On the Road / En el camino, a tense drama set on the desolate highways of northern Mexico. Veneno, a young drifter who sleeps with truck drivers, hitches a ride with Muñeco, a solitary trucker. Their shared loneliness and desire turn into an intense bond, even as the drifter's past threatens them both. Produced by Diego Luna, the film explores the uneasy intersection of eroticism, violence, and survival. It arrives at NewFest after winning the Queer Lion and the Orizzonti award for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival, and it is Mexico's submission for Best International Feature at the 99th Academy Awards. On the Road screens October 22 at SVA Theatre.
NewFest's Latin American narrative selection also includes Elephants in the Fog, directed by Nepalese filmmaker Abinash Bikram Shah and produced as a Nepal/ Brazil/ France/ Germany/ Norway co-production. Set in rural Nepal, the film follows Pirati, matriarch of a Kinnar community in a Nepalese village, who dreams of escaping to a normal life. When one of her daughters disappears, she must investigate and choose between love and responsibility. Shah’s debut feature won the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, marking a historic milestone for Nepali cinema. The film is also Nepal's submission for Best International Feature at the 99th Academy Awards. It has its New York Premiere on October 22 at BAM Cinemas.
Two Mexican and Chilean documentaries offer intimate portraits of trans lives, memory, archives, and self-representation. Mickey, by Mexican filmmaker Dano García, was filmed over a decade and follows Mickey Cundapí, known artistically as Mis$ Mickey, a trans multidisciplinary artist from Sinaloa. Drawing on digital archives and artistic reenactments, the film moves between past and present as Mickey revisits her memories and navigates her transition within the conservative context of Sinaloa, alongside García, who has known her since their teenage years. The documentary won the Global Audience Award at this year's SXSW and has its New York Premiere at Nitehawk Prospect Park on October 21, with streaming available nationwide from October 15–30.
Chilean filmmaker Nicole Costa returns with No Money No Honey. During the pandemic, Argentine travesti sex worker Máxima Mauricio revisits a collection of VHS tapes, opening a portal into memories spanning Buenos Aires, Miami, and New York. Using Máxima's personal video archive, Costa constructs a fluid portrait of desire, survival, migration, and chosen family across the Latin American diaspora. The film also foregrounds travesti as a distinct socio-political gender identity originating in South America. No Money No Honey has its New York Premiere on October 24 at SVA Theatre, followed by a Q&A.
The festival’s Legacy Films section brings back Chavela, Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi’s acclaimed 2017 documentary about Mexican singer and queer icon Chavela Vargas. Built around intimate archival footage—including a remarkable 1991 interview with Vargas and a group of young lesbian admirers—the film traces the artist’s extraordinary life, from her childhood in Costa Rica to her return to the stage after years of alcoholism and heartbreak. Through her music, relationships, and refusal to conform to conventional expectations of gender and sexuality, Chavela captures the enduring cultural legacy of one of Latin America’s most singular queer artists. The film will be available as a Virtual Exclusive from October 15–30.
Latin American filmmakers are also represented across several of NewFest38's themed shorts programs. In "Having a Great Time Being Trans Lately," a T4T program bringing together films by trans filmmakers, Brazilian director Sofia Angst presents Trivakra. The 10-minute short moves through the memories of a child whose body and history are reshaped by gender biotechnologies, incorporating travesti ritual and experimental imagery into a meditation on gender, memory, and transformation. Also in the program is Daddy Has Me Detransitioning, directed by Yoyo Rita, a USA/Mexico co-production in which Leni, a trans man, visits a U.S. passport office in female drag in an attempt to renew his passport. The program screens October 22 at Nitehawk Prospect Park and is also available virtually.
Brazilian filmmaker Vic Casé contributes Cephalopods to "Dream It, Be It," a program of animated shorts imagining fantastical futures and new possibilities. Set in a distant future, the 15-minute film follows Duda, a drag queen who seeks comfort from her best friend Lana after a romance falls apart.
Puerto Rican filmmaker Joshua Hernandez's Chulo appears in "Getting to Know Him," a shorts program centered on first encounters, attraction, and the excitement of discovering another person. The 15-minute film follows Gael as they visit family in Puerto Rico during the summer and meet Mateo, a local whose arrival changes their life forever. The program screens October 18 at SVA Theatre and streams October 15–30.
Finally, Mexican filmmaker Carolina Costa's The Feels – or The Debilitated Condition of the Reproductive System is part of "Transmissions," a trans-centered shorts program that moves between memory, dreams, the unconscious, and speculative futures. Set in a near-future world, the 11-minute film imagines a corporation that has turned curated emotional memories into a commodity delivered directly into the nervous system. "Transmissions" screens October 20 at BAM Cinemas and is available to stream October 15–30.
From intimate coming-of-age stories to experimental shorts, archival documentaries, and genre-bending thrillers, the Latin American presence at NewFest38 reflects the breadth of contemporary queer cinema from the region and its diasporas.
Film descriptions adapted in part from official NewFest38 program notes.
