Category: Drama

Short Film Spotlight: According to Mateo

Exploring a particularly dark side of desire, the new 20-minute short film According to Mateo offers up a moody exploration of the grey area between pleasure and pain.

Mateo and his boyfriend, Marc, arrive home after a night out with Luke, a guy they’ve just met. After an argument, Mateo leaves their apartment and bumps into a mysterious drug dealer named Jon. Mateo convinces Jon to take him to his house – where he discovers that he can’t feel anything that isn’t pain.

Edgy and sexually-explicit, the film was produced and co-directed by Osama Chami, a former production assistant who gained a wealth of movie-making experience working on the films of Pedro Almodovar.

According to Mateo marks Chami’s directorial debut, along with his filmmaking partner Enrique Gimeno Pedros. You can also find their follow-up short, Young Diego, on Dekkoo later this month.

Watch the trailer for According to Mateo below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

Present Still Perfect follows up on a beloved Thai romance

In Present Perfect, his 2017 feature film debut, Thai director Aam Anusorn Soisa-Ngim drew from his own experiences to tell the story of Toey and Oat, a pair of young men who, despite the fact that they both have girlfriends, end up falling into a brief affair during a trip to a small Japanese town.

The film developed a dedicated fanbase in Japan, leading to a successful crowd-funding campaign for this new, highly anticipated sequel. Set four years after the events of the first film, Present Still Perfect reunites the two young lovers – this time on a tropical Thai island.

Oat is now a married man with a son, but Toey has never forgotten their brief romance and won’t give it up so easily.

Tender and heartfelt, the film offers an idealistic view of same-sex relationships in modern day Thailand.

You can catch up on the whole romantic saga right now at Dekkoo. Present Still Perfect is available now, along with the original film. Watch the trailer for Present Still Perfect below.

Short Film Spotlight: The Future

The new 10-minute short The Future concerns a promising first date that could easily turn into a dream come true… or a nightmare.

Newcomer Chun-Wei Peng stars as a hopeless romantic who decides to venture out to the club and meet up with a guy he’s been chatting with on a dating app. When he meets the man, played by Elliot Cable, in person, there is an instant attraction.

The two young bachelors end up making out on the dance floor and share a cigarette on the way home. Soon, however, they’re approached on the street by a mysterious psychic played by Grace Carmen-Davis, who offers the new couple a free reading of their future. And that’s when things start to get really tricky.

Stylishly crafted by first-time director Andy I-Chang Wang, this trippy British short captures the infectious process of becoming smitten with someone you just don’t know all that well yet – and projecting a future together that, sadly, may not come to pass.

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

Watch the full first season of the gay series Trending Yesterday

If you could go back in time and change one of your life’s biggest regrets, would you? Could you? More importantly, should you?

The binge-worthy new series Trending Yesterday explores that very question. This independently-produced show follows a close-knit group of gay men who have all been friends since the late 1980s. Though they came of age during a more turbulent time, the group built a strong sense of community and survived society’s ups-and-downs together.

The series begins in the present day, but takes an unexpected turn when, after a celebratory night, Eric, the show’s narrator, wakes up to discover that he has somehow been transported back to 1988. He then sets out on a mission to change the things he wasn’t able to the first time around.

Employing a dual timeline, this clever, critically-acclaimed series examines the many strides we have made over the past three decades as well as the challenges that still exist within the LGBTQ community.

All eight episodes of the first season of Trending Yesterday are now available on Dekkoo!

New episodes of Woke are available now on Dekkoo!

A new season of Woke has arrived!

The series, created by Sullivan Le Postec, centers around the abundant, colorful world and everyday lives of several engaging and passionate activists who run an LGBTQ+ center in France.

In this brand-new season, Thibaut saves a Chechen refugee from a nearly fatal trap, and in the process discovers a trial program for human rights protection which has provided shelter for numerous people in Europe. Meanwhile, Hicham returns to his tower-block neighborhood in Saint Étienne after a relative is killed in a fight with the police.

Both men are in a race against time. Thibaut has to discover the mole inside the European institutions in order to save the lives of those protected by the human rights program, while Hicham has to reveal the truth about his cousin’s death and fight a media cover-up which threatens the case.

Series stars Mehdi Meskar and Eric Pucheu return to their roles in what is easily the show’s grittiest and most intense season yet. If you haven’t caught up with all the action, fear not. The first two seasons of Woke are also available now on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Malik

A hard-hitting 15-minute short film from French writer-director Nathan Carli, Malik concerns two men who are looking to make a better life for themselves, but find that escape is more difficult than either of them had hoped.

Malik and his boyfriend live in a low-income neighborhood that is less than accommodating to their lifestyle. The local homophobic attitudes have made their day-to-day lives unsafe.

They have formed a plan and attempt to flee the city, but Malik’s older brother Walid and his gang refuse to let them get away easily. What begins as an attempt to escape to greener pastures soon becomes a desperate run for their lives.

An intense drama, Malik has earned acclaim at film festivals and is now available to Dekkoo subscribers.

An international gay film franchise is born with the Thai romance Present Perfect

For Present Perfect, his 2017 feature-length film debut, Thai director Aam Anusorn Soisa-Ngim drew from his own experiences to tell the story of Toey and Oat (Adisorn Tonawanik and Kritsana Maroukasonti), a pair of young men who have a brief affair during a trip to the small town of Higashikawa in Japan.

Though there is clearly a spark between them, they’re both on different journeys. While Toey is still recovering from a recent breakup, Oat is engaged to a girlfriend back home – and the burgeoning romance that they soon share is far from guaranteed.

Ending on a cliffhanger, Present Perfect developed a dedicated fanbase in Thailand at the time of its release, which was evidenced by the crowdfunding success of its eventual sequel, Present Still Perfect, a few years later.

Dekkoo is proud to present the original film to American audiences. Now you can go back to the beginning and catch the start of this on-going romantic saga.

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