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Manuel Betancourt

@bmanuel

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Interim Editor, Documentary magazine
Film critic/culture writer
📚 Hello Stranger (2025)
📚 The Male Gazed (2023)
📚 Judy at Carnegie Hall (2020)

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Documentary’s “Greatest Docs of the 21st Century” lists are filled with documentary portraits that flatter and model a way of looking at the world.

Ever since I saw a photo exhibition of Peter Hujar’s work at the Morgan Library back in 2018, “Christopher Street Pier #2 (Crossed Legs)” (1976) has served as the image on my iPhone lockscreen. Unlike his most famous portraits (like those of Candy Darling on her deathbed, Susan Sontag mid-thought, or even his many arresting self-portraits), the black and white photo I stare at every time I receive a new text or go to merely check the time is an unassuming photo of a man at that famed cruising spot in New York City. Wearing denim shorts, boots, and bunched up white striped socks, the man Hujar has captured is all but obscured by the photo’s frame; instead, his crossed legs dominate the shot, framing in turn the cityscape behind him.

Read more at Documentary.org. #DocumentaryMag Greatest Docs of the 21st Century: Portrait of a Practice - By Manuel Betancourt. Image: Iris Ng (L) and Sarah Polley (R) shooting Stories We Tell. Photo credit: Ken Woroner. Courtesy of National Film Board of Canada

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HELLO STRANGER by @bmanuel is available now in paperback! 📚

Witty and winkingly playful, Manuel Betancourt’s HELLO STRANGER explores modern queer romance and the expansive possibilities of ephemeral intimacies.

✨ "A persuasive and well-researched disquisition on the edifying and seductive potential of those we don’t yet know." — @nytbooks

✨ “A confident compendium of queer theory through the lens of pop culture . . . a lively and intelligent addition to an essential discourse on how not only accessing our desires but also being open about them can make us more human, and perhaps, make for a better world.” —@latimes

✨ "A beautiful collection of essays . . . A collage of thoughts on closeness and what it all means." — @altajournal

✨ "Betancourt is funny, warm, and brilliant. Reading this collection of essays is like sitting down with your most well-read friend, firing away with connections that show how much our experiences have in common across time and space." — @ALA_booklist

#paperback #essays #bookstagram #lgbtq #queerauthor

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The Eric Lesh Weekend (Part 1 of 2): DRINK AND DRAW! What a fantastic weekend! We kicked it off on Friday night with our first ever “Drink and Draw” event with our special guest host Eric Lesh @edldraws visiting from Provincetown and with our amazing first model Adam @adam_all_up.

Special thanks to Eric and Adam, to the capacity crowd of 40 (!) artists who attended, and a special thank you to our neighbors across the street @pstoolshed who generously offered $2 drink tickets to everyone (so we all went across the street for the afterparty! ) 🎫.

I heard from so many people how this evening was a return to drawing for them, a rediscovery of an art form that they loved but hadn’t done in years. We will be doing it again! If you are interested in attending the next session as either an artist or as a model, and you aren’t yet on our list, please DM or email: info@jacomoretti.com

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2025 leftovers

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Another year, another sleigh - happy alcoholidays to all who celebrate!
Thank you to @andrewehawkins for opening his home to us - thank you to @kylethomasbuchanan and @sugarrhill for mothering/fathering us all.
Thank you to @jrdsrv for the pics.
And thank you to the gays and theys for all the slays…
#hohohobitch

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Happy Alcoholidays 🥂🍾

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Please join us in welcoming Manuel Betancourt, our new Assistant Editor, Documentary magazine!

Manuel Betancourt (he/him) is the Assistant Editor of Documentary magazine. Born and raised in Colombia, Manuel is a regular guest on FilmWeek with Larry Mantle (LAist), whose work has appeared in Variety, the Los Angeles Times, the AV Club, the New York Times, BuzzFeed Reader, Vulture, Film Comment, Esquire, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. He’s the author of 'The Male Gazed: What Hunks, Heartthrobs and Pop Culture Taught Me About (Desiring) Men' (Catapult, 2023), named one of the best books of 2023 by Time magazine, NPR, and them, and 'Hello Stranger: Musings on Modern Intimacies' (Catapult, 2025). He’s a former contributing editor at Film Quarterly, where he published his column, “Cineando,” all about Latin American cinema. Manuel is a member of the board of jurors for the George Foster Peabody Awards, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), and GALECA, the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics. In 2019, he was selected to be the Writer in Residence at the Sundance Institute’s Documentary and Story Edit Lab. From 2022 to 2025, he was an assistant programmer in the U.S. Narrative Features section of the Tribeca Festival. He holds a doctorate degree in English Literature from Rutgers University.

Meet our Staff! In service of our mission, IDA is committed to hiring the best people to join the IDA family and serve the documentary community. Each member of our team supports the vital work of documentary storytellers and champions a thriving and inclusive documentary culture. Learn more about our staff at documentary.org. #idastaff

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What is your favorite Spanish-language horror film?

To watch the full episode of 'Critical Thinking,' click our link in bio.

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Author and IT’S DOROTHY! contributor, @bmanuel gives us a beautiful reminder of how art and artist can become inseparable, and how Dorothy lives on in every frame of Judy’s story. We are excited to have him join us at the LA premiere of IT’S DOROTHY! 🌈

Thursday, October 23rd 8:00pm
Opening Night Feature @micheauxfilmfest
The Culver Theater

Ticket at link in bio 🎟️

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Film critics @bmanuel, @rosaparra2018, and @carlosfilm break down the backstory of the 1931 Spanish #Dracula.

Click our link in bio for the full episode.

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Film critics @bmanuel, @rosaparra2018, and @carlosfilm share their 5 favorite Spanish-language horror movies.

Click our link in bio for the full episode.

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Cruising (1980)

📸 @andrewehawkins

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