What if growing up in the Church led you to believe that you weren’t really going to grow up at all?
Young David, played as a little kid by Zakary Risinger, interprets something he hears from the pulpit by a homophobic, Southern Baptist preacher (Del Shores) that changes his outlook on life.
As an adult, David, now played by writer-director Mat Hayes, takes his family to a more progressive church, but despite Reverend Wynn’s (Jessalyn Gilsig) inspiring sermon on true love, David struggles to overcome the trauma inflicted upon him as a young boy at the hands of the church.
Will he be able to find peace with the religion he was raised in? Daniel Robaire, as David’s husband Jonathan, offers the love we all look for in a partner. Erica Tazel delivers a gripping performance as Young David’s school nurse, rounding out the stellar ensemble of actors.
Watch the trailer for Cognitive below. This short film is available now on Dekkoo.
A surprise federal court ruling in 2013 legalized gay marriage for Utah – triggering a fierce battle in a state where Mormon church values control the Legislature and every aspect of public life.
Church & State, the bold, award-winning documentary from co-directors Holly Tuckett and Kendall Wilcox, tells the improbable story of a brash, inexperienced gay activist and a tiny Salt Lake City law firm that joined forces to topple Utah’s gay marriage ban.
The film’s ride on the bumpy road to equality in Utah offers a glimpse at the Mormon Church’s influence in state politics and the squabbles inside the gay community that nearly derailed a chance to make history.
Church & State is a story of triumph, setback and a little-known lawsuit that should have failed, but instead paved the way for the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized gay unions nationwide.
Watch the trailer for Church & State below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.
“When you first fall in love, everything else around you seems to melt away and pretty much nothing or no one else seems to exist. In the French-Canadian film Genesis (Genese), about adolescent love, director Philippe Lesage weaves this idea of full-on immediacy and a very blinkered view into the fabric of his storytelling, delivering a film that feels intensely alive and in the moment.” – Boyd van Hoeij, The Hollywood Reporter
“Philippe Lesage takes chances, and succeeds with boldly original form and narrative. Critic’s Pick.” – Ben Kenigsberg, The New York Times
“A study of duality, family and youth, Genesis is considerate in its beauty and agony, a successful exploration of first love and first heartbreak.” – Nick Davie, Spectrum Culture
Following his autobiographical 2015 narrative debut The Demons(also available now on Dekkoo), writer-director Philippe Lesage chronicles the life of young Felix (Édouard Tremblay-Grenier), now diverging to capture the romantic trials and tribulations of two Quebecois teen siblings. While the charismatic, Salinger-reading Guillaume (Théodore Pellerin) wrestles with his sexual identity at his all-boys boarding school, the more ostensibly grown-up Charlotte (Noée Abita) discovers the casual cruelty of the adult world that awaits her post-graduation. Lesage and his young actors depict the aches of becoming oneself with nuance, honesty, and compassion, and the result is one of the most beautiful coming-of-age stories in years.
Watch the trailer for Genèse below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.
Michael (Austin Miller) is an intelligent, well-spoken corporate transaction analysis attorney. Very successful, he is highly regarded in his firm and by his colleagues. Married for ten years, he genuinely cares for his wife – and knows that she desperately wants to have a baby. He wants her to be happy and agrees to go to a fertility specialist to help the process along. However, Michael has a secret life. He likes to dress up as a woman and be with men.
When Michael meets Shawn (T. Ashanti Mozelle), he is introduced to a world he has only ever dreamed of, and finally embraces his true self.
A confident, outspoken and amiable African American male, Shawn describes himself as a gay black man. He has not had an easy life. He unknowingly took the wrap for another person’s crime, and served time in prison. Now living with his aunt, he regularly works the night shift on the boulevard dressed up as a woman named Coco, selling himself to men.
When he meets Michael, he is intrigued – and encourages Michael to become the person he longs to be.
A powerful and compassionate drama about friendship and hidden desire, Trade is now available on Dekkoo. Watch the trailer below.
Kill the Monsters tells the story of Frankie, Patrick and Sutton, a trio of polyamorous gay lovers. When one of the triad falls mysteriously ill, they decide to embark on a grand adventurer, heading West across the country in search of holistic treatment. As their travels progress, the highs and lows of their journey mirror key points in U.S. history – from sex in their luxurious New York City apartment, to a road trip that results in a civil war and possible breakup, and, lastly, to an all-out poker war involving scheming, sophisticated, and calculating German and Russian lesbians.
The directorial debut from Ryan Lonergan, who also stars in the film alongside Jack Ball and Garrett McKechnie, Kill the Monsters offers up a bold and unique cinematic vision on a tiny budget. Featuring stunning black-and-white photography, wickedly funny dialogue and lots of sexual politics, the film is a historically-minded, absurdist delight.
The Los Angeles Times called Kill the Monsters “A joyous one-off; a bold, snappy, head-spinningly clever tale of three gay New Yorkers in a polyamorous relationship who cross America in search of physical and emotional healing only to find themselves at war — with each other as well as with an international array of lesbian neighbors in their Santa Monica condo complex.” They went on to say, “If it all sounds weirdly, grandly quirky that’s because it is. But in a good way, thanks to director-editor Ryan Lonergan’s fast-paced, fast-talking, allegorical script that purports to parallel American history from 1776 to 2017 but can just as enjoyably be taken at face value.”
On the night of October 6, 1998, two men lured Matthew Shepard, a gay freshman at the University of Wyoming, from a bar in Laramie, WY. He was kidnapped and driven to a field where he was tortured and tethered to a fence and left to die. Never regaining consciousness, Matthew succumbed to the severe injuries from the attack and died on October 12, 1998.
The murder of Matthew Shepard was a devastating tragedy that made countless headlines around the world. As people denounced the hatred and senseless violence that caused Matthew’s death, a much-needed dialogue about hate crimes and intolerance against the LGBT community began and continues to this day.
Matthew’s tragic story brought the reality of inequality and vicious, irrational contempt into the public consciousness and set the stage for the landmark Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law in 2009.
The documentary Matt Shepard is a Friend of Mine follows director Michele Josue, a close friend of Matt’s, as she travels to pivotal locations in Shepard’s life, interviewing other friends and family members, and gaining insight into the beautiful life and devastating loss of Matthew Shepard.
While we’ve come a long way, LGBT inequality and hate crimes are still very real today, and parts of Matt’s story are unfortunately still very much a part of young people’s realities. Though framed through a very personal lens, Matt Shepard is a Friend of Mine tells a universal story that highlights the responsibility we have now to make sure young people around the world are not at risk of falling victim to the same story ending Matt was.
Written and directed by Adam Reeves, My Brother’s Shoes is a zany fish-out-of-water comedy that borders on fantasy and reality.
Dallas, portrayed by country singer Peter Stringfellow, is a successful executive with a beautiful wife (Gretta Sosine) and a lovely home. He has dreams of having a family and leading a rich, conservative life. Austin (Jacob Ellis) is his younger gay brother who is always in trouble financially and romantically. He has dreams of winning first place in the local drag queen contest and then using the money to start a new life.
Each brother thinks the other “has it so good” and wishes that they could experience what the other one’s life is really like. By a strange twist of fate, they switch places. The world around them sees no difference but Dallas and Austin realize they have been switched. Now Austin must handle the office for Dallas as Dallas spends the day getting ready for the upcoming drag contest with the help of Austin’s sidekick, Jackie. The hilarity reaches new heights as evening comes and Austin goes home to Dallas’s wife Katelyn, who is ready to start making a family with him. Dallas goes to the theater to perform on stage in drag and win for Austin! How far will they go?
A queer twist on the body-swap comedy subgenre, My Brother’s Shoes is a feel-good crowd-pleaser. Watch the trailer below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.
Writer-director Andrew Ahn’s remarkably assured feature-length debut is a portrait of forbidden sexual awakening set in the nocturnal world of spas and karaoke bars in Los Angeles’ Koreatown.
David Cho (Joe Seo, who won the Special Jury Award at Sundance for his breakthrough performance), a timid 18-year-old living with his financially-struggling immigrant parents, chances upon a secret spot for cruising when he takes a part-time job at an allmale spa, and begins to realize hidden inner desires that threaten his life as a dutiful son and student.
Effervescent and atmospheric, this one-of-a-kind coming-of-age story makes the steamy spa a liminal place between dream and reality, and desire and disillusionment.
“Spa Night is an intensely personal film,” said Ahn. “I knew very early in the screenwriting process that I had to draw from my own life experiences in order to find the honesty I wanted to show on screen. As the son of Korean-American immigrants, I have felt the conflict between my parents’ expectations and my own personal desires. In Spa Night, I wanted to explore what it means to be a part of a Korean-American family. As Spa Night progressed into production, the film became even more personal for me. We shot on location in Koreatown, Los Angeles — at restaurants I have eaten at, spas I have visited, and streets I have walked down. As I directed scenes, I saw my family in this fictional family I had created.”
“My main character David speaks in a mix of Korean and English to his parents, the same mix I use when I speak to my parents. With Spa Night, I want to open up American independent cinema to include stories about immigrant communities told in languages other than English. It is important that our cinema culture reflect the diversity of the American experience. By telling this story, I am attempting to validate the immigrant experience and acknowledge my parents’ sacrifice to leave their home country and start a new life in America. Spa Night is my way of fulfilling my parents’ hopes and dreams.”
Watch the trailer for Spa Night below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.
This stirring feature portrait of Lucha Libre star Cassandro in his waning years in the ring is less a swan song than a meteor shower rendered in Technicolor.
Famed as much for his flamboyant drag and sky-high pompadour as for his show-stopping kicks and flips, Cassandro’s trailblazing ascent as one the industry’s first openly gay wrestlers has resonated internationally for a quarter century.
Director Marie Losier captures the moving, at times humorous, and always colorful dualities of this legendary figure with her talent for forging intimacy with a subject while celebrating his individuality broadly.
Cassandro, a prize-winning fighter who reinvented a staunchly macho sport, exudes resilience of all kinds—from the physical power to leave his opponents knocked out to an ability to revisit past trauma and cope with the scars of a body pushed to its limits. Cassandro’s story—of an underdog and a queer icon, simultaneously fragile and mighty—is ever more evocative as it unfolds on both sides of the Mexican-American border.
Losier’s signature 16mm filming melds tender encounters and larger-than-life fight scenes into a stylish whole that reflects the vivid textures and hues of a dazzling life in sport.
In a small town deep in the American Midwest, Suzanna begins a gender transition and becomes a boy: Coby.
Coby’s transformation deeply impacts the lives of everyone who love him – and each member of this tight-knit family must confront their own preconceived notions of gender and sexuality.
Combining excerpts from Coby’s video dairy with candid, heartfelt interviews from his closet friends and family – director Christian Sonderegger’s debut feature is an intimate and sensitive look at timely subject.
Ultimately, Coby’s journey morphs into the transformation of a whole family compelled by love to modify their own perspectives.
Coby weaves together interviews with Coby himself, his girlfriend, parents, and brother – along with his transition timeline YouTube videos. This documentary offers up a deeply compelling real-life portrait of what it looks, sounds, and feels like to go through the transition process.
Watch the trailer for Coby below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.
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