Shaking up this year’s Oscar race and bringing filmmaking just as epic as The Odyssey (but way more queer) to cinemas nationwide, Spanish directing duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi — aka Los Javis — might be the hottest directors of the present, but their acclaimed La Bola Negra is indebted to the past. Their film honors the often-untold struggles LGBTQ+ people have faced throughout history.
“We’ve forgotten our previous generation,” Javier Calvo says of the film’s origins. “We can have some kind of freedom because they were there and they suffered.”
Though they’ve enjoyed critical acclaim with TV shows such as the trans biographical TV drama Veneno, 2026’s La Bola Negra represents a shift in their own popularity, as well as a new blueprint for the possibilities of queer filmmaking. That begins with embracing a queer aesthetic and LGBTQ+ talent.
“We wanted to make a gay, big, epic war drama, directed by gay men, produced by gay men, and with gay actors portraying gay characters,” Ambrossi says, happily coining the term “epic gay drama,” or “EGD,” to label their work.
And just as our queer ancestors paved the way for us today, Los Javis hope that their filmmaking opens doors for the next LGBTQ+ person hoping to pick up a camera.
“Big networks or big studios don’t usually trust that LGBTQ+ stories are for the big audiences,” Ambrossi said. “And this one is, and like the movie, it’s proving it.” @javviercalvo @soyambrossi_
