August 2019 – Page 2 – Discover great gay stories.

Short Film Spotlight: Fish Tank

Born and raised in the suburbs outside of Boston, Neal Mulani is a rising writer-director with a proclivity for autobiographical narratives about the queer experience. Raised by a father from Mumbai and a mother from Boston, Neal spent his childhood at the crossroad of two cultures and turned to film to articulate the complexity of his experiences.

Neal’s introduction to storytelling, however, began at an early age with theater, instilling in him a fundamental appreciation for character, story and improvisation. Often characterized by genre experimentation and self-insertion, his work explores themes of shame, self-perception, masculinity and parenthood as they relate to the queer experience.

His first short film, the six-minute-long Fish Tank, is a dark, tension-filled study of desire and apprehension and marks the arrival of a deeply skilled filmmaker, especially when it comes to creating tension.

Starring Marcus DeAnda, the 2013 Outfest Jury Prize Winner for Best Actor for his performance in Pit Stop, Fish Tank follows a college student (played by Tristan McIntyre) who goes to his first hook-up with an enigmatic older man. Once there, however, strange things begin to happen. He must decide if his anxieties point to a darker truth about his host for the night. Is his new date a fetishist… or something more sinister? Also, are they really alone in the house? Sexy and scary in equal measure, this short packs an enigmatic punch and leaves it up to the audience to decide what’s really going on.

Fish Tank is now available on Dekkoo.

Now Available: Hot Guys with Guns!

It is not often a gay independent film comes along that combines fast-paced action, sly humor, a bevy of sexy studs, a witty script and top notch acting and direction, but Hot Guys with Guns, stylishly directed by Doug Spearman is just that. Fans of Mickey Spillaine, Sam Spade, Donald Stratchey, Chinatown and The Thin Man series should find a lot to love in this intoxicating modern film noir with pronounced LGBTQ characters.

Part-time actor and full-time waiter Danny (Marc Anthony Samuel), still in love with his ex boyfriend, rich party boy Pip (Brian McArdle), attends a private eye class in preparation for a cop role for which he is auditioning. But when Pip becomes a robbery victim to the “gay sex party bandits,” the two men – despite their unresolved sexual tension – team up as amateur sleuths to solve the crime.

As our boys delve into Hollywood’s gay power world, guns are shot, bodies drop and the two find themselves in one hot gay mess – but remain determined to uncover the culprits.

Hot Guys with Guns has a script that pops with wit and cultural references (“Cops? I am a black man in east L.A. with a dead Mexican on the floor with no head, we can’t call the cops!”) as well as a memorable cast of supporting actors (Joan Ryan as Pip’s needy and boozy mom, Trey McCurley as Pip’s red headed boy toy, Alan Blumefield as Jimmy, the hard-nosed P.I. instructor, and Darryl Stephens as a friend with a dark secret).

Watch the trailer for Hot Guys with Guns below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

Acclaimed author Abdellah Taïa adapts his own semi-autobiography Salvation Army

Described by Interview Magazine as a “literary transgressor and cultural paragon,” Abdellah Taïa became the first openly gay Arab writer in 2006 and remains once of the only openly homosexual Moroccan writers or filmmakers. Since his coming-out, he has become an iconic figure throughout the Arab world, and a beacon of hope in a country where homosexuality is still illegal. His 2013 film Salvation Army, now available on Dekkoo, is widely considered to have given Arab cinema its first gay protagonist.

Adapted from his own novel, itself based on his own coming-of-age, Taïa’s story concerns Abdellah (played by Said Mrini as a teen and Karim Ait M’Hand as an adult), a young gay man navigating the sexual, racial and political climate of Morocco.

Growing up in a large family in a working-class neighborhood, Abdellah is caught between a distant father, an authoritarian mother, an older brother whom he adores and a handful of predatory older men all too happy to take advantage of his sexual confusion in a society that denies his homosexuality.

As a college student, Abdellah moves to Geneva and while faced with the new possibilities of freedom, he grapples with the loss of his homeland. Both chapters in this character’s life inform one another in powerful and moving ways.

You can watch the trailer for Salvation Army below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

New This Week – 8/2/19

In a working class neighborhood in Casablanca, Abdellah, a homosexual teen, tries to build his own life within his big family, caught between an authoritarian mother and an older brother, who he adores. Stream ‘Salvation Army’ now on Dekkoo!

When Nathan tells Bret that he’s HIV positive, it doesn’t go well for Nathan. But months later, things take a turn for Bret. ‘All Things Fade’ is available to stream now on Dekkoo!

If you can imagine ‘Lethal Weapon’ with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as younger, hotter ex-boyfriends, you’ll have the basis for ‘Hot Guys With Guns’, a modern take on the old-fashioned detective story. It’s ‘Chinatown’ meets ‘Boystown’. ‘Hot Guys With Guns’ is available now on Dekkoo!

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Coming next week: Dekkoo Films presents a smart, funny, and sexy globe-trotting (and bed-hopping) romantic drama.