Pride month June Showmax LGBTQI

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Celebrate Pride Month with these six series and movies on Showmax

It’s Pride Month on Showmax!

Pride month June Showmax LGBTQI

Image via Adobe Stock

We’re halfway through June, also celebrated as Pride Month and all things LGBTIAQ+. One area where there are lots to celebrate is film and TV: Showmax’s lineup has everything you could possibly hope to see, from Gentleman Jack to Euphoria.

Pride Month on Showmax

Gentleman Jack

Set in 1832,Gentleman Jack focuses on real-life English landowner Anne Lister (BAFTA Award winner Suranne Jones from Doctor Foster) and her determination to transform the fate of her faded ancestral home, Shibden Hall, by reopening her coal mines and marrying well – to a woman.

At this year’s BAFTAs, Gentleman Jack is up for Best Drama and Jones is nominated as Best Actress. Directed by BAFTA-winner Sally Wainwright, Gentleman Jack has an 8.2/10 rating on IMDB and a 90% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes

Rocketman

Rocketman is the story of how a little boy called Reginald Kenneth Dwight grew into Sir Elton John, one of the greatest musical icons of all time.

It’s a celebration of the music, the dreams, and the larger-than-life persona that’s made Elton a legend, as well as the story of his struggle with addiction, and of his friendship with his long-time lyricist Bernie Taupin, who helped him through. 

Rocketman was nominated as Best Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes, as well as British Film of the Year at the 2019 BAFTAs, and Favourite Drama Movie at the 2019 People’s Choice Awards.  

Rafiki

“Good Kenyan girls become good Kenyan wives,” but Kena (portrayed by Samantha Mugatsia) and Ziki (Sheila Munyiva) long for something more. When love blossoms between them, the two girls are forced to choose between happiness and safety.

Rafiki was nominated for the Un Certain Regard and Queer Palm Awards at Cannes 2018, as well as a 2020 GLAAD Media Award nomination for Best Limited Release Film.

Kanarie

One of my personal favourites. Two-time Comics’ Choice winner Schalk Bezuidenhout, who also won a SAFTA for his supporting role in the kykNET comedy Hotel, stars in Kanarie as a small-town boy during Apartheid.

He is chosen to serve his compulsory two-year military training in the South African Defence Force choir, where he discovers his true self through hardship, camaraderie, first love, and the liberating freedom of music

Kanarie has a 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with The Los Angeles Times praising it as a “rich, poignant and finely observed musical-drama” and The Hollywood Reporter as “a winning combination of thoughtfulness and exuberance.”

Euphoria

In this adults-only high school drama series, Zendaya (K.C. Undercover, Spider-Man: Homecoming and The Greatest Showman) stars as 17-year-old Rue, who returns home from rehab with no plans to stay clean, and falls for the new girl in town, Jules.

Euphoria has an 8.3/10 rating on IMDB and a 82% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus says:

Inxeba (The Wound)

Inxeba tells the story of Xolani, a lonely factory worker, who joins the men of his community in the mountains of the Eastern Cape to initiate a group of teenage boys into manhood.

When a defiant initiate from the city discovers his best-kept secret, Xolani’s entire existence begins to unravel. It’s one of the most talked-about South African movie, with I-D Magazine describing it as,

“the most important LGBT film you will see in 2018… through the character of Xolani we are introduced to a world where homosexuality is still simply not an option.”

The excessive protests against the film laid bare the rampant homophobia that remains in parts of South Africa.

Also read: ‘Rafiki’ premieres during Pride Month: Award-winning Kenyan love story now streaming on Showmax