Liam (2018 film)

Liam
Film poster
Directed byIsidore Bethel
Produced byIsidore Bethel
Anne-Laure Berteau
Edited bySandie Bompar
Music byBen Cosgrove
Production
companies
Alice Films
Because the night productions
Distributed byTënk
Release date
  • April 7, 2018 (2018-04-07) (Boston LGBT Film Festival)
Running time
70 minutes
CountriesUnited States
France
LanguagesEnglish
French

Liam is a 2018 first-person documentary film directed by Isidore Bethel. It follows the director's own story as he moves to France after his best friend Liam dies back in the United States. Through documentary, performance, and stop motion animation, a ghostly portrait emerges of Liam, prompting Isidore to question his relationships with his parents and his boyfriend in Paris.[1] The film premiered at the Boston LGBT Film Festival and received the Paris LGBTQ+ Film Festival's Documentary Jury Prize in 2018.[2][3] The francophone streaming service Tënk acquired the film in 2019 for streaming.[4]

The film met a modest but favorable reception: critics noted that "Bethel is most definitely a very talented cinematic voice" and characterized the film as "brilliant" and as a "documentary that's universal for how it questions grief and powerful for its analysis of the legacies that survivors bear."[5][6][7]

  1. ^ "Liam". Isidore Bethel. January 2017. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  2. ^ "LGBT Film Festival takes on immigration". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  3. ^ "Palmarès du 24e festival Chéries-Chéries 2018". Chéries-Chéris. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  4. ^ "Liam - Tënk". Tënk. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  5. ^ "Liam". queerguru. 31 March 2018. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
  6. ^ "Liam Dealing with Death". Reviews by Amos Lassen. 7 April 2018. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
  7. ^ "Fantômes & Coming Out: Liam". Tënk. Retrieved 29 April 2021.