Ayala Malls Cinemas Presents Venice Film Festival 2024 Competition Entry “QUEER” Directed by Luca Guadagnino Opens June 10

 

For years, Ayala Malls Cinemas has celebrated Pride Month by championing stories that reflect love, diversity, and authenticity on the big screen. As an ally to the LGBTQIA+ community, Ayala Malls Cinemas continues its support for creating a space where audiences can experience compelling films that spark conversation, representation, empathy, and understanding. 

This Pride Month, Ayala Malls Cinemas brings bold, cinematic storytelling this Pride Month starting June 10 with the acclaimed film from visionary director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name, and Challengers), “QUEER,” based on the novel by William S. Burroughs. In 2024, the film made its mark as an Official Competition entry at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, where it received a 9-minute standing ovation, proving its emotional impact and artistic acclaim.

Starring Daniel Craig as William Lee and Drew Starkey as Eugene Allerton, alongside Lesley Manville, Jason Schwartzman, Henrique Zaga, and Omar Apollo, “QUEER” is set in 1950s Mexico City and follows William, an American expatriate living in isolation within a small foreign community. His life shifts when he meets Eugene, a young student who awakens in him a powerful and unexpected sense of connection: one that challenges solitude, desire, and the possibility of love itself.

 

In adapting William S. Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical and unfinished novel, Luca Guadagnino has described the story as one rooted in tenderness rather than detachment, emphasizing that Burroughs’ work reveals a side beneath its complex writing, with a quieter emotional landscape beneath its literary mythology. In this vision, love is not defined by distance or impossibility, but by the attempt, even though it’s imperfect and fragile, to reach one another.