The queer indie classic ‘Wild Tigers I Have Known’ comes to Dekkoo

Visionary director Cam Archer is a master at portraying the lives of teens in awkward gay love.

Originally released in 2006, Wild Tigers I Have Known was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival – as well as countless LGBTQ+ film festivals all around the globe. The film stars Malcolm Stumpf as Logan, a middle schooler who is crushing on an older classmate named Rodeo (Patrick White). As the pair spend time together, Logan’s infatuation grows.

Exploring gender fluidity for the first time, he invents a female persona named ‘Leah’ and starts making sexually provocative phone calls to Rodeo at night, hoping to get even closer to the object of his affection. Meanwhile, wild mountain lions have been straying into the populated areas of town. When one happens to wander onto the school’s campus and is shot dead, it signifies an important moment in Logan’s coming-of-age.

For the film’s 15th Anniversary, indie distribution label Altered Innocence put together a restored version of this long-unavailable experimental queer classic.

Kim Dickens and Fairuza Balk co-star in this wildly inventive, achingly sympathetic ode to the highs and lows of adolescent love.

Watch the trailer for Wild Tigers I Have Known below. The newly restored version is now streaming on Dekkoo.