Month: May 2024

Author and performer E. Patrick Johnson challenges Southern stereotypes in the documentary ‘Making Sweet Tea’

Giving voice to a population too rarely acknowledged, researcher and performer E. Patrick Johnson’s 2008 novel “Sweet Tea” collected more than 60 life stories from black gay men who were born, raised and continue to live in the South.

Based on two years of ethnographic research, the book offered a window into the ways black gay men negotiate their identities, build community, maintain friendship networks and find partners – often in spaces that appear to be anti-gay.

A hit at countless film festivals around the country, the profoundly moving new documentary Making Sweet Tea follows Johnson as he travels to North Carolina, Georgia, New Orleans and Washington, D.C. in an effort to come to terms with his past and reconnect with some of the men he interviewed for the book. Johnson also transformed the book into several staged plays over the course of a decade.

Making Sweet Tea combines performance footage with interviews of the men, showing how they have changed since – and been changed by – their depictions in his book and plays. The film covers the subtle complexities of Johnson’s relationships with these men, with his family and with his hometown in North Carolina. It also restages Johnson’s performances of the men’s narratives in their homes, in their churches and at their jobs, sometimes with them directing him or even participating in the scene.

Blurring the line between art and life, Making Sweet Tea offers a glimpse into the lives of people not often given a platform to speak and demonstrates how research, artistry and real life converge.

Watch the trailer for Making Sweet Tea below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

The line between friends and lovers gets blurred in the sexy new gay comedy ‘Shoulder Dance’

Shoulder Dance stars Matt Dallas and Rick Cosnett as Ira and Roger, two former best friends – one gay, the other straight – who have not actually seen each other in twenty-four years.

When Roger arrives unexpectedly for the weekend with his girlfriend Lilly (Maggie Geha) in tow, long suppressed desires dangerously resurface… and a wild weekend of seductive games, unraveling revelations and all-out indulgence ensues.

But as the boundaries of friendship, love and sex collide, the strength of Ira’s long-term relationship with Josh (Taylor Frey) starts getting tested like never before.

Written and directed by Jay Arnold, who previously helmed the 2011 comedy What Happens Next and produced The Big Gay Musical, Shoulder Dance won the Best LGBTQ Film and Best Supporting Actress awards and was nominated for Best Picture at 2023 Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival.

Watch the trailer for Shoulder Dance below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Two Italian teens begin an ill-fated romance during the summer of 1982 in ‘Fireworks’

Set in Sicily in 1982, Fireworks (also know as Stranizza d’amuri) chronicles the budding romance that grows between Gianni and Nino (Samuel Segreto and Gabriele Pizzurro), two teen boys who are stuck in an era and culture that is inhospitable to their love.

Working together setting off fireworks during the summer, the two young men forge a friendship that slowly grows deeper. But when their new romantic bond is uncovered by their families, the consequences prove just as violent and tragic as the times and mores are conservative.

Based on a real-life incident that actually jump-started the Italian Gay Rights movement, and featuring sensitive performances from Segreto and Pizzurro, its two up-and-coming lead actors, this debut feature from Italian writer-director Giuseppe Fiorello is a moving and deeply felt examination of the painful moments that produce lasting political change.

Watch the trailer for Fireworks below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Campfire

There are thirty-some LGBTQ campgrounds in America – many of which started in the 1980s at the height of the AIDS epidemic as refuges for urban gay men and as meeting places for rural (often closeted) men from conservative areas.

In the summer of 2022, author, filmmaker and former New York Times journalist Austin Bunn decided to make a documentary about Hillside, one of the oldest gay campgrounds, located in the mountains of Pennsylvania.

After weeks of interviews, he found that some men were only willing to talk off the record. In an effort to capture their transformational experiences, he created a composite character from their stories and filmed Campfire, a narrative/documentary hybrid.

This award-winning film follows a married dairy farmer who travels to a gay campground in rural Northeast Pennsylvania in search of the man he fell in love with 30 years earlier. Along his journey, he discovers that the past is not done with him yet.

Unfolding in the real location, during one weekend, this inventive and deeply poignant film features six permanent residents of Hillside along with two professional actors and dozens of actual campers – who just happened to be there at the right time – serving as extras.

Check out the poster for Campfire below. A hit with audiences at film festivals all over the country, this unique short film is now available on Dekkoo.

Activist and LGBTQ influencer Yves Mathieu East dances his way through ‘NYC Dreams’

Filmmakers J. Arcane and Paul Erskine focus on telling stories that push boundaries and encourage audiences to challenge their preconceived ideas. After completing numerous shorts, they began making feature films on their own as a crew of two.

Their sophomore feature, NYC Dreams, stars noted Black Lives Matter activist and LGBTQ influencer Yves Mathieu East as Theo, a gifted but struggling dancer in New York City who uses his daydreams to escape and search for love.

As he literally dances his way through the city that never sleeps, he experiences betrayals at the hands of lovers, is unexpectedly embraced by strangers and learns to start coping with the memories of an abusive childhood.

Beautifully photographed and with immersive music and impressive physicality, NYC Dreams eschews any traditional narrative structure. Instead, using minimal dialogue, it builds a rich tapestry of emotions mostly through movement while telling a profound story of memory and longing.

Check out the poster for NYC Dreams below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

‘Supernatural’ is a heady sci-fi fantasia – an art film, political essay and erotic gay drama

One hundred years into the future, an unseen leader transforms Thailand into a strange new world where everything is orderly, citizens earn merit through good deeds and humans are forbidden from touching one another.

For the characters in Supernatural, nostalgia for the past, as well as the painful longing for some form of sexual intimacy, are starting to take their toll. Jumping backward in time, the past lives of three of these characters are revealed.

Packed with gorgeous imagery and sensual homoeroticism, Thai writer-director Thunska Pansittivorakul’s heady sci-fi fantasia amplifies the power of touch while telling an epic story with limited resources. Part experimental art film, part political essay and part erotic gay drama, the film tells individual stories that take place in both the past and the future while commenting on gay life in the present.

Watch the trailer for Supernatural below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.