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Now Available: Coming Clean

From the heart of the Amazon comes Coming Clean, an amazing compilation of LGBTQ+ short films from emerging Latin American directors from Brazil and Peru. These thought-provoking stories prove that universal social themes have no borders.

In The Last Romantics, two young men share their different points of view on the same sexual encounter in a public space. Savage Fire takes place in the city of Cajamar, where lonely characters deal with the police, rodeos and some mysterious fires.

My Only Earth is the Moon follows Sergio, who answers thirty six questions on order to make his crush Gabriel fall in love. Sandra Calling is an emotional short about a man who is trying to grieve for his lost mother while dealing with all the practical things that need to happen in the wake of a parent’s death.

Finally, Carlito Leaves Forever, directed under the supervision of Werner Herzog, takes place in the heart of the Amazon jungle and follows a silent young man who sets out on an epic canoe trip. An encounter soon reveals a secret he had been hiding from his community.

Watch the trailer for Coming Clean below. The full compilation is now available on Dekkoo.

Don’t miss the charming and unusual LGBTQ rom-com Straight Up

A major hit at film festivals when it first premiered in 2019, writer-director James Sweeney’s Straight Up is one of the best gay rom-coms of the past several years.

Sweeney himself stars as Todd, a hyper-articulate and obsessive compulsive twentysomething whose frustration over the gay dating scene leads him to a baffling conclusion: maybe he’s actually straight?!

When Todd meets Rory, a witty and equally whip-smart young actress played by Katie Findlay, the two form a strong connection and try to enter into a hetero relationship together – one that turns out to be all talk and no sex.

Can the two get past their hang-ups and make a real go at a loving and committed asexual relationship? Or are they just good friends who are fooling themselves?

Featuring razor-sharp dialog that evokes classic Hollywood, but with distinctly 21st century references, Straight Up is a deeply funny and charming crowd-pleaser that explores just how elastic our definitions of love and sexuality can get.

Watch the trailer for Straight Up below. The film is available now on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: To (10) Centimeters

When Christophe (Otman Salil), a soft-spoken violinist studying at a music conservatory, moves in with Jerome (Thomas Alden), his almost instant attraction to the young and handsome up-and-coming journalist is palpable.

Unfortunately for Christophe, Jerome is seemingly straight. When he also learns that Jerome has a girlfriend (Océane Dailly), any romantic hopes he had are quickly dashed. His infatuation, however, grows deeper. He borrows Jerome’s clothes and even crosses a line while he’s sleeping.

Facing agonizing longing, their new living arrangement seems untenable. But before Christophe leaves for good, he devises an unusual way to tell Jerome how he really feels.

To (10) Centimeters, a new 25-minute short from Paris-based Japanese filmmaker Masaya Matsui, has style to spare and is packed with intriguing mystery. Watching the film, you’re never quite sure where your allegiance should lie. Is there a real simmering connection between the new roommates or is Christophe projecting and creating a gender-flipped Single White Female scenario? You’ll have to watch and decide for yourself.

Watch a short trailer for To (10) Centimeters below. The full film is available now on Dekkoo.

The short comedy The D*ck Appointment mines the absurdity of dating apps for laughs

When Wally (Patrick Reilly), a lovelorn young man, decides to try getting over his recent break-up, he turns to hook-up apps for help – leading to unusual results.

The D*ck Appointment is a new short comedy from writer-director Mike Roma. The film literalizes the dating/hook-up app experience by casting actors to play the lead character’s various direct message options and having them interact face-to-face, using their text chains as dialog.

Refreshingly observant, the film shines a spotlight on the inherent absurdity of these interactions – culminating in an in-person meeting that’s a little too whiz-bang for our lead. Anyone who has ever wasted too many hour scrolling through Grindr or cut an unsuccessful encounter short will find plenty to relate to and laugh about here.

Mike Roma previously wrote and directed Danny the Manny, which Indiewire named one of the Best Web Series of 2016. The following year, Roma premiered his debut feature film Dating My Mother at Frameline Film Festival. In 2019, his pilot script F*ckboys was developed at the Screenwriters Colony. The D*ck Appointment is his latest project and was chosen as an official short selection at Outfest 2020.

Watch a short clip from The D*ck Appointment below. The film is available now on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Mindf*ck

With the opening line “Drop your trousers,” French writer-director-actor Pierre Scot’s six-minute exercise in suggestive suspense is off to the races.

Mindf*ck is a short psychological comedy-thriller which manages to do a whole lot with a limited running time. The film follows a television journalist who meets a dominant man on a fetish-oriented dating app.

Blindfolded and cuffed to a chair, he’s unexpectedly left alone… and that’s when his mind starts racing. Who is this man he’s only just met and what are his true intentions? If he’s discovered in such a vulnerable state, what will it mean for his career? And, most importantly, what could possibly be inside the deeply mysterious tupperware container his seductive captor has left behind on the kitchen counter?

Without spoiling too much, allow us to offer an important warning to any/all arachnophobes: steer very clear of this short! (And the clip below.)

Watch a short clip from Mindf*ck below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

A group of people come together to confront their shared lover in the heady drama Don’t Look Down

In a high-rise apartment in Paris, four men and a woman gather to share their experiences of a man that they have all been involved with, fell in love with, and ultimately betrayed by.

In the main room, they talk, drink, and dance, while one by one, each goes next door to confront him for a private moment of truth. But what happens between the monster and them remains their secret.

From co-directors Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau, the pair behind The Adventures of Felix and Paris 05:59: Theo and Hugo, Don’t Look Down is a heady new grown-up comedy-drama about the ways in which we change when we’re in love… and the ways we expect our partners to do the same.

Watch the trailer for Don’t Look Down below. The film is available now on Dekkoo.

Now Available: Crutch

An autobiographical film taken from the experiences of writer-director Rob Moretti, Crutch is a coming-of-age tale about a young man’s struggle with family problems and substance abuse.

Behind a façade of suburban middle class perfection, David (Eben Gordon) finds that his home life is falling apart. As he tries to cope with the impossible situation, the troubled and impressionable teenager falls under the spell of Kenny (played by writer-director Moretti), an attractive thirty-something has-been actor turned theater coach.

When Kenny’s “support” escalates into seduction, David slowly descends into an abyss of drinking and drug addition from which he must escape if he is to survive.

Originally released in 2004, this gay indie tells a dramatic tale about the confusion of youth and the difficulties in finding oneself.

Crutch is available now on Dekkoo.

A gay couple find their quiet family life upended in the South Korean drama A Distant Place

A rural sheep farmer’s quiet life in South Korea is disrupted by surprise visits from his lover and twin sister in A Distant Place, the second feature from promising director Park Kun-Young.

Having settled down on a sheep ranch in Hwacheon five years prior, Jin-woo has been raising his niece Seol as if she were his own daughter – all along with the help of his same-sex partner Hyun-min.

One day, Jin-woo’s twin sister Eun-young, who is Seol’s birth mother, turns up at their doorstep and insists on taking Seol with her.

As Jin-woo hesitates to send Seol away with Eun-young, she, in a moment of anger, discloses his relationship with Hyun-min in front of their neighbors – revealing a truth they wished to keep secret.

A gorgeous, contemplative family drama full of surprises, A Distant Place marks Park Kun-Young as an up-and-coming auteur to keep an eye on.

Watch the trailer for A Distant Place below. The film is available now on Dekkoo.

The essential documentary A Bigger Splash comes to Dekkoo

Released in 1974, A Bigger Splash offered up an intimate and innovative film about English-born, California-based artist David Hockney and his work while honoring its subject through creative cinematic risk-taking.

Director Jack Hazan created an improvisatory narrative-nonfiction hybrid featuring Hockney, a wary participant, as well as his circle of friends, capturing the agonized end of the lingering affair between Hockney and his muse, an American model named Peter Schlesinger.

Seen today, A Bigger Splash is at once a time capsule of hedonistic gay life in the 1970s, an honest-yet-tender depiction of gay male romance that dispenses with the then-current narratives of self-hatred and self-pity, an invaluable view of art history in action and a record of artistic creation that is itself a work of art.

Watch the trailer for A Bigger Splash below. A recently restored version of the film is now available on Dekkoo.

Director Eytan Fox follows up with one of his most beloved characters in the gay drama Yossi

Released in 2002, the beloved gay romance Yossi and Jagger followed the romance that developed between two soldiers stationed in an Israeli outpost on the Lebanese border. Ten years later, award-winning director Eytan Fox decided to follow up with one of his most cherished characters.

Dr. Yossi Hoffman (Ohad Knoller) has become a valued and dedicated cardiologist, often using his work as a way to escape from dealing with his anguished life. He lives alone, still closeted, unable to break through the walls and defenses built around him since the death of his lover. Even his co-workers a recently divorced doctor, who tries to sweep Yossi into his world of women and drugs, and a lonely nurse, who is secretly in love with him find it almost impossible to get close to him.

Yossi’s daily routine at the hospital is shaken up by the arrival of a mysterious woman. He follows her, and through the surprising connection they make, receives a rare opportunity to deal with his trauma. Yossi then travels to the southern city of Eilat. Surrounded by the sea and sand dunes, he meets a group of young Israeli officers, among them Tom (Oz Zehavi), a handsome and self confident openly gay man, who represents a new world, different from the one that shaped our lead character.

An emotional, critically-acclaimed sequel, Yossi is now available on Dekkoo. Watch the trailer below.