Category: Drama

Short Film Spotlight: One Day This Kid

As told by filmmaker Alexander Farah through a deftly composed array of small yet pivotal moments, the 17-minute short One Day This Kid follows a first-generation Afghan-Canadian man as he struggles to come to terms with being gay against the disapproval of his immigrant parents and takes steps toward establishing an identity of his own under his father’s shadow.

Inspired by the work of renowned artist David Wojnarowicz, the film uses gorgeous cinematography and emotional precision to tell the story of one gay boy growing up in a society that rejects him at all costs.

Delicate and poised, yet deeply powerful, this is the kind of heart-wrenching storytelling that should not be missed. Marking Farah as a filmmaker to watch, the film won the Narrative Short Competition at the 2025 South by Southwest Film Festival and has earned great acclaim at some of the world’s most prestigious cinema forums, including TIFF, the AFI Fest, Slamdance, Festival du Nouveau Cinema and many more.

Watch a teaser trailer for One Day This Kid below. The short film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Don’t miss the romantic, funny and incredibly sexy new Dekkoo Exclusive ‘Six Candies’

From Marcelo Briem Stamm, the prolific Argentine director behind Solo, We Are Thr3e and Sexual Tension: Volatile, Six Candies is a wildly sexy new gay film composed of various stories, mixed together and united around one self-help book that functions as a hedonistic manifesto.

Six Candies, the novel in question, asks the reader to create something of a bucket list of selfish gratification, choosing six specific pleasures per year that will take priority above all other day-to-day concerns.

The film follows a gay couple who are evaluating the rules of their potential open relationship, a photographer with low self-esteem who longs to return to their origins and two executives whose immense attraction to one another simply cannot be bound by the strict rules of the company that employs them.

Filmed in Buenos Aires with an incredibly hot cast, Six Candies is a colorful and charming erotic romp about following your instincts, seizing the moment and treating yourself to an exceptionally good time, regardless of the consequences.

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

Gay guardian angels Joey and T.J. return in the short film sequel ‘(Un)Free Will 2: The Confession’

Writer-director Robby Kendall returns to Dekkoo with an unexpected follow-up to his short 2024 afterlife comedy (Un)Free Will.

Lead actors Derek DeVault and Brent Roberts reprise their roles as bickering former lovers and full-time angels Joey and T.J.

In (Un)Free Will 2: The Confession they’re tasked by God herself with eliciting a confession from a brokenhearted young man named Ben. Grieving over the recent loss of his mother and racked with guilt after making a promise he was unable to keep, Ben turns to the church.

With a little help from a compassionate priest, a trio of guardian angels, a few divine interventions and an adorable puppy named Darcy, he’s finally able to unburden himself and find the solace he so desperately needs.

Prepare to have your spirits lifted with this warmhearted 15-minute comedy – and be sure to watch the first installment, also on Dekkoo, in what is shaping up to become a “heavenly” on-going series.

Watch the trailer for (Un)Free Will 2: The Confession below. The short film is now available.

An all-star cast brings Martin Sherman’s award-winning stage play ‘Bent’ to the screen

Clive Owen, Mick Jagger, Ian McKellen, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz and Paul Bettany star in Bent, a gut-wrenching adaptation of the award-winning stage play by Martin Sherman.

Originally released in 1997, the film is set in 1930s Berlin. We follow Max (Owen), a promiscuous gay man who sleeps with a German SA officer, only to see him killed by his fellow Nazis the next morning.

Refusing an offer of new papers for fear of leaving his boyfriend behind, he’s found by the Gestapo and soon bound for Dachau. Once there, Max makes friends with a fellow gay man, who shows him that dignity lies in acknowledging one’s true nature. As the pair become lovers through dialog and the power of their imagination, they reckon with identity and struggle to maintain their dignity in the face of unspeakable persecution.

The original play, which premiered in London in 1979 before opening on Broadway the following year, was revived many times, most significantly by Sean Mathias, who directed this film adaptation as well.

Though much time had passed between the play’s debut and this film’s release, much was still not known about the experiences of LGBTQ+ victims of the Nazi regime. By the time of the film’s release in 1997, it was the first feature to tackle the subject head on. Today, Bent remains a riveting and important record of our understanding of this terrible history, a valuable preservation of a significant work of theater and a deeply moving cinematic work in its own right.

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

Two young lovers discover Amsterdam’s queer nightlife in the stylish gay drama ‘Out’

A critically-acclaimed film festival hit from Dutch writer-director Dennis Alink, Out follows a pair of young lovers named Tom and Ajani. Together, the pair yearn for the moment when they can leave their small-minded, rural town in the Netherlands and be open about their relationship and identities.

When the pair move to Amsterdam to enroll in film school, they find themselves enmeshed in an explosive and relentless queer scene that challenges their ideas of who they are and what they want.

Dripping with sleek style and shot in sumptuous black and white, Out presents gay nightlife as a seductive creature that lures newcomers in and turns everything upside down, especially for those unaccustomed to a world that not only embraces you, but desires you.

A piercing portrait of being young and gay in a permissive environment, Out takes the audience on a simultaneously joyous and heartbreaking journey of self-discovery.

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

A hook-up goes wildly off the rails in the mind-bending thriller ‘The Skin of the Teeth’

The Skin of the Teeth, a sinister drama-thriller from writer-director Matthew Wollin, evokes the feel of a contemporary film noir.

When Josef (Pascal Arquimedes) arrives for a date at the apartment of John (Donal Brophy), their prickly energy slowly gives way to an unusual and genuine chemistry. But after Josef swallows a pill with unclear effects, the night starts to take a shocking turn.

Josef is suddenly plunged into a surreal world where he encounters two mysterious detectives. He’s soon forced into a literal and figurative interrogation of just who – or what – he is.

While evoking the surreal work of David Lynch, this wild film examines race, sex, love and identity in a mind-bending way.

The Skin of the Teeth aims to keep you guessing – and the lead performance from talented up-and-coming actor Pascal Arquimedes will have you holding your breath from beginning to end.

Watch a short trailer for The Skin of the Teeth below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

Alan Cumming is exceptional in the thought-provoking generational drama ‘After Louie’

An award-winning gay drama featuring a knockout lead performance by Alan Cumming, After Louie explores the contradictions of modern gay life and history through Sam, a man desperate to understand how he and his community got to where they are today.

As an AIDS activist and member of ACT UP in the ’80s and ’90s, Sam witnessed the deaths of far too many close friends and lovers. Battle-wounded and struggling with survivor’s guilt, Sam now resents the complacency of his former comrades and derides what he sees as the younger generation’s indifference to the politics of sex and death.

When he meets Braeden, a seductive young man played by Zachary Booth, during a late-night outing at the bar, he quickly is able to lower Sam’s guard. As the pair become increasingly intimate, an intergenerational relationship blossoms between them – one capable of reawakening Sam’s artistic soul and reviving his wilted heart.

Through this unconventional romance, Sam is finally forced to deal with the trauma that informs his past, his present and the pair’s unknown future.

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

A hustler falls prey to a sinister psycho in the tense Dekkoo-original thriller ‘The Prodigy’

From the producers behind House of the Devil and The Innkeepers comes a bone-chilling new descent into queer psychosexual horror.

Beau Swartz stars in The Prodigy as Adam, a street hustler who has just about given up on life. At the start of the film, he’s picked up by a mysterious trick whose seemingly sinister intentions go largely unnoticed. Adam can’t even muster up the energy to care about his own fate. He accompanies this man to his isolated home in the desert and soon finds himself held captive – stuck at the mercy of a psychopath whose dark history prevents him from understanding the difference between reality and his own murderous fantasies.

As Adam sits locked away in confinement, he finally begins searching his soul… and finds himself faced with an important decision. Should he give up on life completely… or fight like hell to keep it?

Directed by prolific filmmaker Omar Salas Zamora and co-written by frequent collaborator Calvin Picou (who delivers a truly menacing performance), The Prodigy is an unexpected, genre-bending follow-up to their gritty 2020 drama Adam in Fragments. While that film followed Adam during his earlier days on the streets, you don’t need to have seen it to enjoy or understand this one. Both movies function as stand-alone pieces of work that happen to follow the same character.

The Prodigy finds the versatile filmmaking duo sharpening their horror skills – and ‘sharp’ is the right word. This film is not for the squeamish. If you’re looking for lighter fare, we highly recommend the Dekkoo-originals Here Comes Your Man and Nothing But Flowers, two projects from Zamora and Picou that feature far less bloodshed and a whole lot more gay romance! For those who aren’t afraid to get a little twisted, we can’t recommend The Prodigy more highly.

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

‘Rift’ is a haunting relationship thriller from Icelandic director Erlingur Thoroddsen

Months after they broke up, Gunnar (Björn Stefánsson) receives a strange phone call from his distraught ex-boyfriend, Einar (Sigurður Þór Óskarsson). He drives up to the secluded cabin where Einar is holed up and soon discovers that there’s more going on than he imagined.

As the two former lovers begin coming to terms with their broken relationship, some other person seems to be lurking outside the cabin, wanting to get in. In the most marvelous of Icelandic landscapes, the stage is set for a dense psychological thriller, where something strange and possibly sinister is growing from the ashes of a failed romance.

Packed with eerie atmosphere and captured with stunningly beautiful cinematography, Rift, a taut mystery from Icelandic writer-director Erlingur Thoroddsen, walks a fine line between thriller and relationship drama.

Chilling, thought-provoking, and deeply evocative, this is the kind of film that lingers with you long after the credits roll.

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

‘20,000 Species of Bees’ tells a heart-wrenching story about gender, sexuality and identity

In a small, sleepy village in the Basque Country, a sculptor named Ane and her three children arrive at her mother Lita’s home for summer vacation. Lita disapproves of her daughter’s frayed marriage, career as an artist and the way she parents her obstinate and mischievous children.

Chief among them is eight-year-old Aitor, nicknamed Coco, after it becomes clear that being referred to by the name Aitor elicits feelings of distress in the child. Born biologically male, neither birth name nor the genderless nickname feel quite right, and Ane’s concern for her child grows as Coco becomes more withdrawn.

The child’s only respite lies in the Basque hills, where Ane’s aunt Lourdes tends to the family’s beekeeping farm. Among the peaceful humming of bees and Lourdes’ open-minded guardianship, Coco slowly begins to confide in family and friends her discomfort in her body, eventually voicing a desire to be treated as a girl.

As Coco explores her own developing identity over the summer, Ane and the rest of her family in turn must learn to accept the child as she is.

From Basque director Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren, this assured debut feature is a wonderfully sensitive work carried by the Berlinale Silver Bear-winning lead performance of newcomer Sofía Otero.

An authentic and heart-wrenching story of transition, 20,000 Species of Bees is a landmark in the cinematic discussion of gender, sexuality and identity.

Watch the trailer for 20,000 Species of Bees below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.