Category: Award Winner

Now Available: Sublime

How do you avoid losing something precious when it’s the very thing tearing you up inside?

Whether he’s writing music with his garage band buddies, having dinner with his family or sneaking off into the woods with his girlfriend, 16-year-old Manu (Martín Miller) is never quite present. He’s consumed by a secret that’s been eating him up inside.

In his dreams, Manu and his best friend Felipe (Teo Inama Chiabrando) lie in bed together, staring longingly into one another’s eyes while inching closer and closer together. Though they never kiss, the desire is clear. That desire simmers beneath the surface of writer-director Mariano Biasin’s moving new coming-of-age drama Sublime.

Featuring beautiful cinematography, an exceptional soundtrack and palpable chemistry between lead actors Miller and Inama Chiabrando, this award-winning new film follows one teen whose affection for his best friend can only stay suppressed for so long.

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

Queer Classics: Edge of Seventeen

A high-water mark of queer cinema in the ‘90s, the coming-out classic Edge of Seventeen was recently remastered for a new director-approved HD restoration – now available on Dekkoo.

Written by Todd Stephens, the director behind Gypsy ’83, Another Gay Movie and the acclaimed recent release Swan Song, and based on his own coming-of-age story, Edge of Seventeen is set in Sandusky, Ohio during the summer of 1984.

Chris Stafford stars as Eric, a closeted young man who has just finished his junior year of high school and takes a job serving food at the local amusement park. When he meets Rod, an attractive, slightly older co-worker played by Andersen Gabrych, he finds himself exhilarated, but somewhat terrified by his sudden attraction.

Their heated flirtation slowly brings Eric out of his shell, but his sexual awakening is complicated by his family life, his undefined relationship with his best friend Maggie (played by Tina Holmes) and, ultimately, the time period itself – it’s the Reagan era, after all.

Featuring Lea DeLaria in a scene-stealing supporting role and a pitch-perfect soundtrack that includes Bronski Beat, Flock of Seagulls, Thompson Twins and the Eurythmics, Edge of Seventeen is an unflinchingly honest and deeply touching gay romance than still resonates today.

Watch the original trailer for Edge of Seventeen below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

The first season of ‘After Forever’ is now available on Dekkoo

Co-created by Emmy-nominated TV writer and playwright Michael Slade and actor-writer Kevin Spirtas, the moving series After Forever follows Brian and Jason, a 50-ish gay couple living in New York City who appear to have it all… until they don’t.

When Jason dies unexpectedly, Brian must face the grieving process. Suddenly, he’s forced to think about his own future – and ultimately his own mortality – without the love of his life.

Winner of six Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Digital Drama Series, After Forever is a funny, heartbreaking, heartwarming and ultimately empowering series that will resonate with audiences of all ages and sexual identities as it explores relationships, healing and new beginnings.

The first season of After Forever is available on Dekkoo now. The second season will premiere in August. Watch the trailer below.

‘The First Fallen’ is a profoundly moving 1980s period drama from Brazil

Set in 1983 The First Fallen stars Johnny Massaro as a young biologist who returns home from studies abroad and starts to feel that there is something wrong with his body.

This is the beginning of the AIDS crisis – when the first wave of the epidemic hit Brazil. Lives will change, friends will be lost and gained and the future is suddenly uncertain.

With energy, humor and righteous anger, director Rodrigo de Oliveira (the award-winning filmmaker behind Tu Me Manques) creates a drama full of powerful performances, vibrant color and dramatic craft.

Partly entertainment and partly a work of cinematic activism, The First Fallen takes audiences on an emotional journey, offering up a powerful ode to the victims of the AIDS crisis and the community of solidarity and support that formed during those terrifying early days.

Watch the trailer for The First Fallen below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

Pride Month Spotlight: Queer Docs

For Pride Month this year, we wanted to shine a spotlight on some amazing documentaries.

A mix of films both underseen and celebrated, heartbreaking and triumphant, with varied tones and subject matter, this collection of docs take us deep inside true queer stories of life, loss and love.

Bridegroom, Matt Shepard is a Friend of Mine and Gemmel & Tim tell true stories of people taken from us too soon, but whose lives and legacies have left us left us changed for the better.

50 Years of Fabulous, Oriented, A Queer Country and Pride & Protest take us to specific places to celebrate the power of community. Drag Race star Jamal Sims’ doc When the Beat Drops offers up a fun and fast-paced history of bucking in Atlanta.

An Act of Love and This is What Love in Action Looks like capture activism in unlikely places. Finally, Electroboy and Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood explore two fascinating queer figures from two very different time periods.

The Pride Month Spotlight: Queer Docs collection is available on Dekkoo now – and all throughout the month of June.

Cicada is a feast for the eyes as well as the heart

Co-written by Matthew Fifer and Sheldon D. Brown, who also star in the film, the must-see new indie comedy-drama Cicada examines inter-racial relationships, bisexual identity and sexual abuse while also exploring the intricacies of falling in love and how that can go hand-in-hand with uncovering uncomfortable truths about one’s self along the way.

Fifer, who also co-directs with Kieran Mulcare, stars as Ben a young bisexual man who, after a string of unsuccessful encounrers with women, decides it’s time to go “back on the dick.” He soon develops an intense relationship with Sam (Brown), a man of color struggling with deep wounds. As their summer romance progresses and their intimacy grows, Ben’s past begins crawling to the surface – putting the pair’s still-burgeoning love affair in jeopardy.

Co-starring Cobie Smulders, David Burtka and SNL breakout star Bowen Yang, Cicada is easily one of the most acclaimed gay films of the past several years. Vogue said that it “will stay with you long after the credits roll.” And The Jam Report called it “one of the most beautifully-crafted pieces of queer cinema of recent times.” We firmly agree with both assessments.

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

Now Available: French director André Téchiné’s acclaimed coming-of-age drama ‘Being 17’

From André Téchiné, the renowned writer-director behind the queer classic Wild Reeds, comes Being 17, a moving exploration of unexpected adolescent love.

Damien and Thomas (Kacey Mottet Klein and Corentin Fila) are teens from very different backgrounds who go to the same school… and are constantly fighting. Damien is the gawky son of a doctor and a military pilot stationed abroad. He can’t seem to stop staring at Thomas, the handsome bi-racial son of local farmers who reacts with hostility to Damien’s longing.

Damien’s mother Marianne (Sandrine Kiberlain) is treating Thomas’s ailing mother at the farm, a snowy two-hour ride outside of town. When she needs to be admitted to the hospital, Marianne quite naturally offers to take Thomas into their home for a temporary stay. Forced to live together under one roof, the two boys must work through their hostility, emerging attraction and complicated desires.

Co-written by Celine Sciamma, the award-winning filmmaker behind Tomboy, Petite Maman and Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Being 17 is a critically-acclaimed coming-of-age gem that accurately captures both youthful friction and attraction.

Watch the trailer for Being 17 below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Our Way Back

An intense 26-minute thriller from Israeli director Moshe Rosenthal, Our Way Back follows two secret lovers who find themselves in a life-or-death situation.

Lior Ashkenazi stars as Uri, a 50-year-old family man in a secret romantic relationship with the much-younger Oded, played by Shachar Netz.

Telling his wife that he’s going away for a business conference, Uri whisks Oded away to the desert, where the two can express their love for one another freely, away from the prying eyes of their small, close-knit community.

When Oded suffers a serious accident, it puts not only their affair, but his very life in jeopardy. Now Uri is faced with a major decision. He can call for help and risk being exposed, or let go of the man he loves in the most heartless way possible.

Our Way Back is now available on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Aadat

Filmed in Pakistan in a matter-of-fact style, Aadat is a bracing 13-minute short from writer-director Iqran Rasheed.

Aadat tells the story of a deeply closeted young man from a conservative Muslim family. Gripped with unrealized desires, he dares to hire an attractive young sex worker. The two spend time together alone in a room, cautiously getting closer while fully aware of the risks involved.

A devastating film about one perfectly normal young man who is looking to explore his sexuality in a forbidding Islamic country, Aadat is a sobering and heartbreaking reminder of the basic freedoms that are still not afforded to gay men in many parts of the world today.

Watch a short trailer for Aadat below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Sleepover

An eight-minute short film from Swedish director Jimi Vall Peterson, Sleepover follows Emil and Adam, two seemingly straight young men who have been friends since junior high. After a night together at the movies, Emil decides he is going to crash at Adam’s apartment.

The two young men end up sharing a double bed. In the middle of the night, Emil awakens and his unspoken feelings for Adam start to become clear. But is he willing to test the boundaries of their friendship?

A simple, but well-executed short film Sleepover perfectly captures those youthful pangs of unrequited love.

Sleepover is now available on Dekkoo.