Actor-director Julio Torres didn’t appear in-person at the Outfest screening of his upcoming comedy Problemista, but he did send a message to the audience. “Hello, fellow queers,” Torres began in a video that played before the start of Problemista on Saturday night.
Before it rolled, the LGBTQIA+ film festival in Los Angeles explained that Torres recorded the message shortly before SAG-AFTRA went on strike on July 14, with instructions to play it if the walkout prevented him from attending the event. “If you’re seeing this, it only means one thing and that is that my union went on strike.
So, I am not there [out Outfest] in solidarity,” he said. “When picking a side between fellow artists and the interest of corporations and their millionaire, billionaire CEOs, the choice was, how do you say, uh, easy.” As Deadline reported exclusively on Friday, A24 has indefinitely postponed the planned August 4 release of Problemista as a result of the actors strike.
Torres, best known for the HBO comedic series Los Espookys, makes his directorial debut with the film in which he stars alongside Oscar winner Tilda Swinton.
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