At Sundance, Ayo Edebiri, Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Russell Tovey & More Talk Need For LGBTQ Representation Amid Trump 2.0: “We Have To Stay Visible”
As my first Sundance Film Festival comes to a close amid a precarious time for my community and many others, I look back on this year’s cinematic lineup with some optimism for LGBTQ representation when it’s needed most.
From dark comedies about human connection to heartfelt family dramas about the shared queer experience and documentaries about the detriments of censorship and anti-trans legislation, filmmakers are holding space for progress, despite growing government-facilitated rollbacks on transgender and LGBTQ rights.
While discussing her new Mark Anthony Green-helmed A24 horror at Deadline’s Sundance Studio, Ayo Edebiri admitted it “feels maybe slightly psychotic at times” to look at the news in what happened to be the first days of 2025 amid President Donald Trump’s second term in office. “But my hope is that for me and that for other artists, that we continue to just champion each other’s work.
It’s massively important,” said Edebiri. “There are so many queer storytellers who have changed the medium and changed lives, outside of storytellers who are in the western canon.” Looking back on films that “have moved me throughout my life,” the Golden Globe- and Emmy-winning actress noted that the most impactful titles were about “characters who don’t look like me or characters who don’t have my worldview.” “The humanity is what moves me,” Edebiri explained. “And there’s people that I love and I work with, and we have different politics, but it’s humanity and care for each other, I think that has to be the heart of it.” Her Opus co-star Murray Bartlett echoed the need for “universal stories” after multiple people during the festival had stressed that specificity is the key to universality. “I think the arts have always been a place where change can happen when change is being kind of squashed in other areas,” added Bartlett. “And I think it can be really powerful in a way, telling stories that aren’t necessarily exactly about what’s going on, but kind of
