Category: Camp

A legendary entertainer and pioneer gets her due in the documentary ‘Miwa: A Japanese Icon’

Male actor Akihiro Miwa came to prominence in Japan back in 1968 while playing the glamorous heroine of the film Black Lizard.

A legendary entertainer and a pioneer of gay activism, Miwa popularized androgyny as a fashion statement, fusing the masculine and the feminine into a new generation of aesthetics. This evolved into performing as a woman and living off-stage as a man.

With glitter, wit, evening gowns and enchanting storytelling, Miwa: A Japanese Icon, the celebrated new documentary from director Pascal-Alex Vincent, looks back over a 50-year career and a fascinating life in Japanese music, film and television.

Having sold millions of records, Miwa continues to fight for gay rights, among other issues. Miwa: A Japanese Icon reveals the life story of this wonderful performer and unapologetic social critic.

Watch the trailer for Miwa: A Japanese Icon below. The documentary is now streaming on Dekkoo.

D’Arcy Drollinger’s ‘Shit & Champagne’ delivers high-kicking, ass-whooping comedy!

When the drug-lords of the underworld kill your fiancé and your sister – and the cops stand idly by and do nothing – there’s only one thing left to do… dance!

Writer-director D’Arcy Drollinger’s tribute to female empowerment and the low-budget exploitation films of the 1970’s, Shit & Champagne delivers high-kicking, ass-whooping comedy.

After her fiancé, Rod (Mario Diaz), and her half-sister, world renowned calf model Brandy (Steven LeMay), are both brutally murdered, Champagne Horowitz Jones Dickerson White (Drollinger), a divorcée and exotic dancer from the wrong side of the tracks, uses all the right moves to single-handedly take on ‘Mal-Wart,’ the largest sex, drug and back-to-school clothing ring in the country.

But when her best friend becomes addicted to booty bumps and is forced to work as a Mal-Wart brand discount prostitute, Champagne has no other choice than to go undercover and infiltrate the corrupt organization.

Using an arsenal of disguises, a plethora of kung-fu moves and a cornucopia of one-liners, Champagne dances her way down the fast and furious road to revenge.

Adapted from Drollinger’s wildly successful stage show, Shit & Champagne is fiendishly fun, offering up wall-to-wall slapstick and camp thanks to the unwavering comic timing of triple threat writer, director and lead actress, as well as an impressive supporting cast of all-star drag talent.

Watch the trailer for Shit & Champagne below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Bubble Gum

Shooting in black and white, writer-director Karina Grinstein pays tribute to classic silent films while giving them a modern spin with her 12-minute short film Bubble Gum.

Channeling Buster Keaton, Mariano Rojo stars as David, a single 23-year-old who finds himself deeply unsatisfied with his love life. Everywhere he looks, David seems to find happy couples in his line of vision, but he just can’t seem to find the right match for himself.

When he spots a potential female suitor on the streets, he makes great efforts just to avoid her. Despite her advances, she’s clearly not the one. But when he accidentally bumps into an attractive, bearded young professional, something about their passing moment together feels entirely different.

Though they quickly part ways, it seems that his whole world suddenly has more color – both literally and figuratively. When the two young men happen upon each other once again, it becomes clear that the feelings are mutual.

Watch the trailer for Bubble Gum below. The full short film is now available on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Thank You, Places

With numerous short films to their names, we have become big fans of collaborative filmmakers Jono Mitchell and Madison Hatfield. Their work is intelligent, heartfelt and unapologetically queer.

Thank You, Places, the latest short co-directed by Hatfield and Taylor Coriell and starring Mitchell, is a winning romantic comedy about a backstage breakup that comes at an inopportune time.

The 8-minute film follows actors Grant and Jimmy (Mitchell and Braian Rivera Jimenez), who fell for one another while working together on what they both admit is an absolutely dreadful community theater play.

Now that Grant has dumped Jimmy before the play’s run has ended, they have to find a way to make it through a performance without killing one another or potentially ruining their already terrible stage production further.

Thank You, Places is a love letter to theater, queer romance and the jaded and idealistic artists that are always at war inside each of us.

Watch a short teaser trailer for Thank You, Places below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

The queer classic ‘Saturday Night at the Baths’ comes to Dekkoo in a new 4K restoration

Newly restored in 4K, director David Buckley’s landmark excursion into bisexuality, 1970s relationship politics and the historical importance of gay bathhouse culture is celebrated in his 1975 film Saturday Night at the Baths.

When struggling pianist Michael (Robert Aberdeen) lands a job at the legendary Continental Baths in New York City, his wife Tracy (Ellen Sheppard) encourages him – and even emphasizes how special this institution is. Michael, however, struggles with his own homophobia, yet starts developing feelings for his confident and sexually free co-worker Scotti (Don Scotti).

Shot on-location inside the famous Continental Baths and featuring an unforgettable 12-minute scene of the actual entertainment of the time, both musical and erotic alike, Saturday Night at the Baths is a sublime example of the compelling and sensual queer cinema of one of the most groundbreaking periods in gay and bisexual film history.

Watch the trailer for the new restoration of Saturday Night at the Baths below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Casa de Bonecas

Supple young bodies fuse and ooze in the delirious audiovisual freak-out Casa de Bonecas.

Kind of like a mix of John Waters and David Lynch, this experimental – and experiential – 15-minute short from Brazilian writer-director George Pedrosa doesn’t tell a story so much as establish a deeply weird vibe.

This mind-melting film follows three scantly-clad queer performance artists as they descend into a trippy rabbit hole of madness – a dark, wet place where the grotesque and the sensual merge and anyone who enters is seduced by the pink secretions that lie within.

There is plenty of gross-out imagery in store as the film gleefully sashays through various genres – musical, comedy, sci-fi and horror, just to name a few – and our heroes transform into beautiful creatures who dance, devour and arouse.

A cross between your worst nightmares and your wildest wet dreams, Casa de Bonecas is thoroughly bonkers in the best possible way.

Watch a brief clip from Casa de Bonecas below. The full short film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Director Bertrand Mandico offers up a visually stunning queer allegory with ‘The Wild Boys’

The Wild Boys, the debut feature from prolific French short film director Bertrand Mandico, is ready to blow your mind.

Set on a small island at the beginning of the 20th century, the film tells the tale of five adolescent boys (all played by female-identifying actresses) who come from wealthy families, but find themselves increasingly drawn to the occult.

Looking to explore lives of crime and transgression, the group collectively commits a brutal crime – aided by ‘Trevor,’ a strange deity of chaos they can’t seem to control.

The boys are soon punished, forced to board a boat with a lecherous sea captain who is hell-bent on taming their ferocious appetites. They arrive on a lush island where dangers and pleasures abound… and the boys start to transform in both mind and body.

Gorgeously shot on 16mm and brimming with homoeroticism, genderfluidity and sly, subversive humor, The Wild Boys will take you on a heady, hedonistic journey you won’t soon forget. It’s a colorful, unique and strangely funny underground queer masterpiece.

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

Andrea Riseborough and Demi Moore star in the wild queer pastiche ‘Please Baby Please’

Andrea Riseborough, Harry Melling and Demi Moore star in this neon-lit fantasia about newlyweds who find themselves on diverging sexual journeys.

A wildly inventive and wickedly funny 1950s pastiche from acclaimed filmmaker Amanda Kramer, Please Baby Please follows Arthur and Suze, two seemingly straight arrows who live an outwardly traditional lifestyle as the Lower East Side’s most bohemian Eisenhower-era couple.

The pair find their cage rattled when they witness a murder and become the new targets of a gang of sadistic, leather-clad greasers known as ‘The Young Gents.’ Their initial thrust of fear soon evolves, arousing previously unsuspected emotions and feelings of sexuality in both of the young lovers.

This sudden exposure to flamboyant masculinity unlocks the realization that Suze is an aspiring leather daddy who mistook herself for a housewife. Meanwhile, the perpetually sensitive Arthur’s obsessive gender trouble goes sideways when ‘Young Gent’ Teddy sparks his dormant queer desires.

Please Baby Please presents a full spectrum of underground fetishism and seductive musical asides, along with delicious cameos from Karl Glusman and Cole Escola. Visionary filmmaker Amanda Kramer pegs the hetero hell-scape of the 1950s in a witty, syncopated riff that plays like a high camp emission from your wildest dreams – bathed in silk, sweat and bisexual lighting!

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

An alluring stranger comes between three witchy siblings in the supernatural thriller ‘Cheat’

Originally produced by the Filipino network Hue TV, the new ‘Boys’ Love’ film Cheat is a campy psychological thriller with supernatural undercurrents.

A tale of stolen innocence, the film follows Vee (Daryll Rodriguez), an alluring and mysterious young man who comes from an unusually sheltered upbringing. When he befriends Dong, Jennifer and Jay (Migo de Vera, Allora Alcantara and Victor Relosa), a family of three siblings, along with their mother (Tuesday Vargas), who dabbles in witchcraft, his strange charms set off a series of events that will inflict devastating consequences.

As all three siblings begin to fall in love with the unusual stranger, jealously, lust and betrayal rear their ugly heads and Vee’s mere presence in the family’s life threatens to tear them apart.

With edgy supernatural soap opera vibes in the vein of ‘Supernatural’ or ‘Charmed,’ Cheat delves into the maelstrom of intimate relationships within a tightly knit family. It’s also got style and sex appeal to spare.

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