Now Available: At the End of the Day

After losing his wife and counseling practice, the only thing thirty-two-year-old Dave Hopper (Stephen Shane Martin) has going for himself is his part-time professorship at his alma mater, a growing Christian college. And the only reason he even got that job was because his previous professor (Tom Nowicki), now ambitious dean, pulled a few strings.

The Dean’s plans for growth hit a snag when the property he wants to develop has been promised to a gay support group – which has plans to open an LGBT homeless teen shelter if they can raise the money in time. The Dean is forced to take drastic measures, offering Dave his dream job, but he only gets it if he goes undercover in the group as a gay man – the abomination he counsels against – and stops them from raising the funds needed to buy the property.

Dave reluctantly agrees, and for the first time, is met face-to-face with the community he has been battling his entire career. The awkward and emotional experiences that follow lead Dave on a journey of truth, revealing that life and love are not as black and white as he first thought.

The feature-length debut from writer-director Kevin O’Brien, At the End of the Day is a compassionate new comedy drama. Watch the trailer below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

 

New This Week – 7/24/20

From writer-director João Maia, this stylish new biopic follows the life and career of singer-songwriter António Variações. An inspiring figure in Portuguese pop culture, Variações fought through severe prejudice to express his love of music, performance and fashion on a grand, uncompromising scale. Dekkoo Films is proud to present ‘Variações: Guardian Angel’ available to stream now, exclusively, on Dekkoo!

When his boyfriend shows up unannounced, Elias’ religious family learns their son’s darkest secret. ‘South of Heaven’ is streaming now on Dekkoo!

Brought together by an immediate chemistry, a couple finds themselves questioning their future together, and if love is enough to change their plans. ‘What We Don’t Say’ is available now on Dekkoo!

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Coming next week: A drama based on the life of Mario Mieli, one of the founders of the Italian Homosexual Liberation Movement.

A family reunion takes a tense turn in Take Me to the River

A Nebraskan family reunion couldn’t seem more backwards to a gay Californian teenager. If Ryder (Love, Simon and Escape Room star Logan Miller) had his way, he’d choose a moment just like this to come out – the bigger the scene the better! For the sake of his conditionally-accepting parents (Richard Schiff and Robin Weigert), however, Ryder agrees to keep quiet… save parading around the picnic in his most audacious pair of short-shorts.

Ryder’s antics raise dubious eyebrows from his hardened cowboy relatives, but nine-year-old Molly (Ursula Parker) can’t get enough. She follows her cool California cousin everywhere. After lunch, they walk to the barn to look for a bird’s nest in the rafters Their strange encounter, and whatever happened while the two escaped their family’s watchful eyes, makes Ryder the sudden target of suspicion, and places him at the center of a long buried family secret.

Featuring excellent performances from a stellar cast (also including Josh Hamilton and Azura Skye), Take Me to the River is an intense indie family drama from writer-director Matt Sobel.

Watch the trailer for Take Me to the River below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

New This Week – 7/17/20

Daniel is a young man struggling with an inner identity that is desperate to be realised. After leaving his father to move to London, his subconscious desires begin to take control. ‘Into the Mirror’ is available to stream now on Dekkoo!

The murder of Madorilyn Crawford, a famous transsexual artist, hides dark secrets that involve powerful people in the Colombian politic context and exposes the hypocrisy of those who handle power above the law. Watch ‘Natural Selection’ now on Dekkoo!

An Asian-American high school football player confronts his deepest fears after an encounter with a mysterious figure. ‘Jeremiah’ is available to watch now on Dekkoo!

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Coming next week: Dekkoo Films presents a biopic about António Variações, a famous Portuguese pop rock singer from the 80s who died from AIDS-related complications in 1984.

Now Available: Your Bones and Your Eyes

João (writer-director Caetano Gotardo), a middle-class filmmaker who lives in the city of São Paulo, goes through a series of encounters with people like his long-time friend Irene (Malu Galli); his boyfriend Álvaro (Vinicius Meloni); Matias (Carlos Escher), a young man he meets in the subway and has a sexual experience with, among others, some acquainted, some unknown.

These encounters affect him and slowly begin to reveal a play of time frames which blends together life and creative process, memory and the present.

In Caetano Gotardo’s gorgeous, meditative follow-up to his debut feature The Moving Creatures, life and love, the creative process emerges as a recurring theme, recalling the films of Éric Rohmer and Hong Sang-soo.

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

 

Now Available: Cheetah in August

A former high school track athlete’s distorted views on love, negatively affects the people closest to him in the acclaimed LGBTQ series Cheetah in August.

The show centers around the deep personal journey of the main character, August (Andre Myers), as he examines his life in therapy, from his high school years into adulthood. At the start of the season we are introduced to August’s alter ego, “Cheetah”, who is the main force preventing August from enjoying a monogamous relationship with his current lover. As a large cast of characters are soon introduced, they intertwine within a web of sex, lies, deception, and murder.

Sexuality, love, religion, psychology and self-hate are all themes that are touched on throughout Cheetah in August, which proudly aims to raise awareness of societal issues often swept under the rug. Series creator Anthony Bawn has said that he hopes to use the show to explore ideas of ethnic LGBTQ identity through a “mentally confused young adult searching for normalcy” and that he pictured how a young black male growing up in a religious family could develop social desegregation within the gay community.

Watch the trailer for Cheetah in August below. The first two twelve-episode seasons are available now on Dekkoo.

New This Week – 7/10/20

A conservative professor at a Christian college finds himself in a gay support group to stop their launch of an LGBT homeless youth shelter in their small town. Face-to-face with the community he has been battling his entire career, he begins a journey of truth, revealing that life and love are not as black and white as he first thought. Watch ‘At the End of the Day’ on Dekkoo!

A young man on vacation searches for his identity while longing for affection. As he watches people on the beach he becomes aware of another young man dancing free. ‘Beautiful Alexander’ is available to stream now on Dekkoo!

This documentary tells the story of Reverend Frank Schaefer who was put on trial in the United Methodist Church for officiating his son’s same-sex wedding. ‘An Act of Love’ is available now on Dekkoo!

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Coming next week: An inner identity desperate to be released.

Two siblings reconnect after choosing very different paths in Escaping Freedom

Foster siblings Vincent and Krystal (Patrick D. Green and Kelly Godell) have been estranged for many years. When they are forced to reunite, their polar opposite paths in life lead to an explosive outcome where each is made to come to terms with their own faults.

Vincent is a pastor living in the Pacific Northwest. During his childhood, his best friend was his foster sister, Krystal. The two regularly found themselves in all sorts of trouble which brought no end of frustration to their parents. Broken by the death of their minister father, Vincent committed his life to the church and began a career behind the pulpit. This decision directly led to a falling out between him and Krystal. Over the last two years, Vincent wrote her letters of an increasingly personal nature. These “confessions” reveal his crisis of faith and a suppression of his sexuality. His best friend is Marcus (Jonathan Daniel Miles), a fellow pastor at the church, who Vincent’s affection for has developed into something he knows must be kept hidden.

A self-proclaimed hedonist, Krystal lives every day basking in the moment. After Vincent left town to begin his time at seminary, she decided to dedicate her life to the theatre, a passion she has held since childhood. Today she is a well-respected actress in town with a reputation for bringing “a foul mouth and a good time” wherever she goes. She finds immense pride in always striving to be authentic to who she is, even if she does not like what she sees. After receiving a series of letters from Vincent, Krystal finally responds with a hurtful message for her brother to move on in his life and leave her alone.

As each other’s closest confidant as well as biggest critic, Vincent and Krystal attract and repel like magnets. When the siblings reunite, everything comes to a head, both within their relationship and within each of their individual lives.

Escaping Freedom is about two very different people. They can see the apparent faults in the other while completely ignoring their own. How long can this dance last without failing? On the surface these two are polar opposites, but when you look a little deeper, they are truly two sides of the same coin,” said writer-director Edd Blott.

“It’s the same for all of us. We are neither Vincent nor Krystal. We are all BOTH Vincent and Krystal. That is ultimately what Escaping Freedom is about. We are complex creatures with the capacity to love, feel pain and deep fears, and exude incredible strength. When the credits roll, I hope you see a bit more clearly that you and the person sitting next to you are in this world together. Both are worthy of being loved, by others and, maybe even more importantly, by his/her/their own self.”

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

 

Buddies is an intensely personal study of love, death, and the need for activism

David (David Schachter), a naive graduate student, has volunteered to work as a ‘buddy’ for people dying of AIDS. Assigned to the intensely political Robert (Geoff Edholm), a lifelong activist whose friends and family have abandoned him following his diagnosis, the two men, each with notably different world views, soon discover common bonds, as David’s inner activist awakens and Robert’s need for emotional release is fulfilled.

The first narrative feature film made about the AIDS crisis, acclaimed independent filmmaker Arthur Bressan Jr’s (Passing Strangers, Abuse) Buddies is an intensely personal study of love, death, and the need for activism during the earliest years of the LGBTQ community’s fight for survival.

Structured like a filmed play, Buddies turned out to be Bressan’s final film, as he too would fall victim to AIDS barely two years after its completion.

Nearly impossible to see following its brief theatrical release and never officially released on home video, Buddies is available now on Dekkoo, newly restored from a long-lost 16mm negative. You can watch the original 1985 trailer below.

New This Week – 7/3/20

Mateo is an intelligent boy who falls in love with his friend Daniel. When their relationship is revealed, Mateo is at a crossroads and must decide between fighting his adversities, or giving up everything – including his own life. ‘Green Butterflies’ is available now on Dekkoo.

Lucas is a cocky pretty boy who lives for casual sex and no commitments. Dean is a shy romantic trying to work out what he wants. After a hookup leads to a moment of genuine connection, these two guys find themselves both questioning when does a casual fling become something more, and discover that everyone they know has a different answer. Season 2 of ‘Two Naked Gay Guys’ is available to stream now on Dekkoo!

This documentary chronicles the project by Steven Reigns devoted to collecting rubbings from LGBTQ historical markers, signs, tombstones, cenotaphs, plaques, and monuments. Watch ‘The Gay Rub’ on Dekkoo!

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Coming next week: A conservative professor at a Christian college finds himself in a gay support group.