Category: Award Winner

Short Film Spotlight: The Gust

Set in 2011, weeks after Hurricane María devastated Puerto Rico, this provocative, sexy and deeply moving new thirty-minute short film follows a lonely middle-aged man finds himself obsessing with his squatter neighbor, a young closeted and tormented athlete who insistently pursues his attention.

A massive hit at film festivals all around the world, writer-director Edgar Garcia’s The Gust deals with fragility issues of living in a forgotten paradise, in the world’s oldest colony, still half-torn, half-supported, with half-citizens, half-gods and half-demons.

Check out a few stills from The Gust below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

A touching family bond is explored in the new documentary Madame

The touching new documentary Madame is a double portrait of a young boy slowly coming out of the closet and of the lady that was, even more than his own mother, the woman of his life – his grandmother.

Based on private archival footage, Madame takes us onto an intimate journey where Caroline, a flamboyant 90-year-old grandmother and her filmmaker grandson Stéphane explore the development and transmission of gender identity in a patriarchal environment.

Promised to a domestic life in the 1920s, Caroline manages to free herself from the clutches of a forced marriage and becomes a successful businesswoman, defying the social rules of her time.

In parallel, Stéphane struggles to play the role everyone expects in his Swiss bourgeois family, until the day he comes out of the closet and sets off on a crusade against homophobia and sexism.

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

Marathon tells a true story of courage, endurance and the triumph of love

Based on a true story, Marathon explores the relationship between Richard Harteis (Bristol Pomeroy) and William Meredith (Alec Dana), former US Poet Laureate and winner of every major American award for poetry including the 1988 Pulitzer Prize.

In the 17th year of their friendship, William sustains a debilitating stroke. Richard stands by his partner, fighting for the right to care for him, despite the inevitable restrictions on his own life, and against the wishes of William’s family. Though the path they have chosen is not an easy one, their love and compassion see them through days of illness, therapy, and healing. The power to overcome illness with dignity becomes a lesson in physical and spiritual endurance, hard won knowledge indeed.

Marathon displays the resolve, discipline and courage of two human beings running for their lives, qualities that can sustain us all in life’s marathon. In this moving account, we see how two fellow runners have joined the course, and just how far our dreams can take us before we cross the finish line.

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

Now Available: More Than Only

Justin (Jonathan Miles) knew he was gay from a very young age, but he was not allowed to act upon it. Finally in college and free from having his every move watched, he seeks out what it is he feels he wants… until he discovers what he needs.

When Justin acts out recklessly – again, after the bi-semester check in phone call with his dominating and controlling father – he causes enough personal injury to require yet another ER visit. It is in the ER, on this specific night, he meets Michael (Bjorn Anderson), a male nurse.

As a result of his father’s overt homophobia, Justin has never quite been able to love or accept himself, let alone another person. It’s not until his relationship with Michael begins to blossom that he sees a potential “happily ever after” at the end of a dark tunnel.

Written and directed by Michelle Leigh, this touching indie follows one troubled young man learning how to love himself and accept love from another.

Watch the trailer for More Than Only below. The film is available now on Dekkoo.

https://youtu.be/rAAuD-LJcs8

The new gay series I Am Syd Stone is available now on Dekkoo

Originally released in 2014, writer-director Denis Theriault’s 10-minute short film I Am Syd Stone earned acclaim at film festivals around the globe and competed as an entrant in the prestigious Iris Prize festival. The film was also included in the 12th volume of the popular Boys on Film DVD series.

I Am Syd Stone followed a closeted gay movie star (played by Gharrett Patrick Paon) returning to his hometown for his high school reunion, who unsuccessfully attempts to rekindle his relationship with his former boyfriend Brent (Michael Gaty).

Now Theriault has followed up that successful short with a brand-new series of the same name. This new six-episode show expands the story.

Syd Stone (now played by Travis Nelson) has found his career as an actor has fading. He is now on location in a small town to film a B-movie, and meets and falls for lawyer Matt (Benjamin Charles Watson), but must confront the emotional consequences of having remained closeted for the sake of his career.

The series is set in the present day, and alludes to the events of the original film, however, there is a much happier ending in store for Stone this time around.

All six episodes of I Am Syd Stone are streaming now on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Involuntary Activist

Aled (Rick Yale) is faced with an incredibly emotional dilemma when his sister tells him that his husband isn’t on the guest list to her wedding in Turkey.

Torn between alienating the sister he loves or doing something that goes against his own core values, Aled struggles to keep everyone happy.

Exploring the theme of conformity versus defiance – Involuntary Activist shows us how easy it is to stand for something in theory but what a different matter it is to stand for it in practice.

Filmed in Sweden, Involuntary Activist was written and directed by prolific short filmmaker Mikael Bundsen, a longtime protégé of Ruben Östlund (the internationally acclaimed director behind Force Majeure and The Square). His short Mother Knows Best (also available now on Dekkoo) competed at Berlinale and has won a number of awards, including the Iris Prize, and been screened worldwide, including Palm Springs, Thessaloniki and Sydney Film Festivals.

Involuntary Activist is available now on Dekkoo. Watch the trailer below.

A romantic encounter changes the life of a drag artist in the drama Your Eyes on Me

From writer-director Sergei Alexander, the British drama Your Eyes on Me tells the story of an experienced drag queen named Gloria (Paul Stone) whose life starts to change when she meets Kandi (Jean-Philippe Boriau) a younger drag-virgin who is auditioning for her next show.

As a bond begins to develop between Gloria and Kandi, their relationship takes an unexpected turn. Suddenly, the past, and the choices Gloria made as a young man, become a stark reality.

A Russian-born filmmaker who arrived in London in 2004, Alexander makes his feature-length debut with Your Eyes on Me. The film won major awards and acclaim at the 2020 London Independent Film Festival.

“Your Eyes on Me is a story of love, family, friendship and sexuality, one which can be read and interpreted on many different levels and through many different lenses,” said Alexander. “I hope that film will bring viewers on a thought-provoking and emotional journey, eliciting questions around their beliefs of love, self-acceptance and self-identity.”

Watch the trailer for Your Eyes on Me below. The film is available now on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Bror

Written and directed by prolific short filmmaker Isabella Carbonell, the fourteen-minute short film Bror (“Brother”) takes place on the soccer field, following two longtime buddies as they cagily broach the subject of taking their friendship to the next level.

Nico (Philip Oros) and Khalid (Poyan Karimi) are best friends – and always have been. Khalid was born in Iran, a country where having feelings for another man can lead to the death penalty. Nico was born in Sweden, a country where it’s openly accepted for a man to have a boyfriend. And yet it’s Nico who keeps holding back when Khalid tries to take their relationship further than it’s gone before.

Well-received on the international film festival circuit, Bror has also been used as an educational film at schools in Germany. The full short film is now available on Dekkoo.

The relationship between a biographer and his subject spirals into abuse and dependence in the tense Australian drama Acute Misfortune

Erik Jensen was an ambitious nineteen-year-old journalist at The Sydney Morning Herald when Archibald Prize-Winning painter, Adam Cullen, with a career retrospective at the Art Gallery of NSW, invited him to write his biography. The new film Acute Misfortune follows of the four-and-a-half years leading to Cullen’s death at the age of forty-six. It is the story of their increasingly claustrophobic relationship.

Based on the award-winning biography Cullen, the Jensen did eventually publish, co-writer-director Thomas M. Wright’s film is about biographer and subject, an iconic artist and lauded author, theft and the commerce of theft, the instability of lies and of coming through an abusive relationship to find meaning in its wake.

These true events, told using almost entirely real dialogue are brought to life by award-winning actors Daniel Henshall (The Snowtown Murders, The Babadook), and Toby Wallace (Romper Stomper, The Turning). Acute Misfortune marks the feature-length debut of Wright, an actor known for Sweet Country and Top of the Lake.

Meticulously researched, the film that was named one of the best films of the year in The Monthly Awards in Australia and by Screen Daily. It also received The Age Critics Prize at Melbourne International Film Festival.

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

Get Back on Board with Greg Louganis

Back on Board: Greg Louganis is an intimate portrait of the public triumphs and private struggles of trailblazing openly gay athlete Greg Louganis. A refreshingly candid documentary about this four-time Olympic champion, Back on Board follows Louganis for three years as he struggles with financial security and reunites with the sport he once dominated but did not feel welcome in. The threat of losing his house during the recent financial crisis forces Louganis to re-evaluate the choices, relationships, and missed opportunities of his career.

Nominated for an Emmy Award and a Producer’s Guild of America award in 2016. Back on Board: Greg Louganis gained critical and audience acclaim on the film festival circuit, screening at over 40 festivals worldwide and picking up eight awards.

The film was also selected for the American Film Showcase, a program of the U.S. State Department that brings award-winning contemporary American documentaries around the world offering a view of American society and culture as seen by independent filmmakers.

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