Gay Film – Page 130 – Discover great gay stories.

New This Week – 8/25/17

Taking place over the course of four years (on four consecutive Valentine’s Days) this achingly romantic indie from Filipino auteur Adolfo Alix Jr. takes an intimate look at the complicated relationship between two college buddies. ‘4 Days’ is available now, one month before it’s release on DVD!

‘Follow Me‘ tells the story of Jasper. He is a young man who has to weigh the overwhelming desire for his first love against the possible angst of rejection.

Based in 300 A.D., this controversial 1976 classic from directors Paul Humfress and Derek Jarman follows Sebastianus, a Roman guard who is exiled to a remote outpost populated entirely by men. Weakened by their desires, the men turn to homoeroticism to satisfy their needs, which tests Sebastianus and his deep Christian beliefs. Watch ‘Sebastiane’ now on Dekkoo!

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Coming next week – ‘Walking Dead’ star Norman Reedus is a broody cutie in this ‘90s indie about a straight boy learning to accept his new friend’s sexuality.

DEKKOO DISPATCH 032 – ‘FOLLOW ME’ AND ‘LOVE IS THE DEVIL’

Title – ‘Love Is The Devil‘

Director – John Maybury

Starring – Derek Jacobi, Daniel Craig, Tilda Swinton, Anne Lambton

Release Date – 1998

Title – ‘Follow Me‘

Director – Anthony Schatteman

Starring – Ezra Fieremans, Maarten Ketels, Lien Maes

Release Date – 2015

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“I feel ever so strongly that an artist must be nourished by his passions and his despairs. These things alter an artist whether for the good or the better or the worse. It must alter him. The feelings of desperation and unhappiness are more useful to an artist than the feeling of contentment, because desperation and unhappiness stretch your whole sensibility.”
-Francis Bacon

Well hey there and welcome to tortured-artist-Wednesday! Today we’ve got two movies that focus on angsty artists in love or at least lust.

‘Follow Me‘ is the short yet touching story of a young artist struggling to figure out if the man of his affections is also the man of his dreams. Shot in fragments we see Jasper honing his craft in the classroom and his studio, working in a bathhouse, following his teacher around town, and having sex with said teacher. The incredible score really elevates this quietly shot short film to transcendent heights and makes the mind wander through issues of love, homophobia, and loyalty. Plus it helps that both characters are superrrr cute.

Speaking of cute look which famous handsome man plays gay in ‘Love Is The Devil‘: DANIEL CRAIG! AHH! And he’s naked in it? Whoa.

But seriously ‘Love Is The Devil‘ is a heavy-duty bio-pic about Francis Bacon, a legendary British painter who scandalized the art world with his intense grotesquely sexual yet beautiful oil paintings paired with his well-known penchant for sleazy homosexual encounters with rough trade. Yes Francis Bacon was definitely a bottom and Derek Jacobi plays him fearlessly as a man who isn’t at all afraid of expressing his sexual depravity:

“When I went into the house of pleasure, I didn’t stay in the room where they celebrate acceptable modes of loving in the bourgeois style. I went into the rooms which are kept secret and I leaned and lay on their beds. I went into the rooms which are kept secret which they consider it shameful even to name. But there is no such shame for me because then, what sort of poet, and what sort of artist would I be?”
-Francis Bacon, ‘Love Is The Devil’

So where does Daniel Craig feature in all this artsy-fartsy sexual psychodrama? Well he plays Bacon’s lover naturally. Late one night Francis discovers a man trying to rob him. That man turns out to be George Dyer, a working-class Brit and after a proposition of coming to his bed for ‘whatever he wants’ they become inseparable. Great way to meet a lover right? Well, that story is actually a myth, dreamt of by Bacon, but why not? It’s a better story than meeting in a pub which is where they actually did meet in real life. Dyer went on to become a muse for Francis and modeled for him several times.

The visuals in this movie are incredible! One of the coolest set-pieces is Francis Bacon’s studio. They actually re-created it inch-by-inch. It looks incredibly similar to the real-life studio. Also of note are the camera techniques to re-create Bacon-esque moving images. Also if all of that didn’t entirely convince you we’re also offering TILDA SWINTON! She’s great in it as always 🙂

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Watch ’em with: Your muse.

Mix it with: The classic drink of tortured artists – Absinthe.

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New This Week – 8/18/17

Writer-director John Maybury’s ‘Love is the Devil‘ offers a searing portrait of English painter Francis Bacon (Derek Jacobi). The film focuses on his tumultuous relationship with George Dyer (Daniel Craig), a younger small-time thief who Bacon treats as both rough trade and the ultimate artistic muse.

Torn between two loves, a young man struggles to understand and accept his own desire. Watch ‘Amias’ now on Dekkoo!

The worlds of a former neo-Nazi and the gay victim of his senseless hate crime attack collide by chance 25 years after the incident that dramatically shaped both of their lives. They proceed to embark on a journey of forgiveness that challenges both to grapple with their beliefs and fears, eventually leading to an improbable collaboration…and friendship. ‘Facing Fear‘ was a nominee for the 86th Academy Awards in the Best Documentary Short Subject category.

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Coming next week: An achingly romantic new indie from a Filipino auteur!

DEKKOO DISPATCH 031 – ‘AMIAS’ AND ‘TOMCAT’

Title – ‘Tomcat‘

Director – Handl Klaus

Starring – Lukas Turtur, Philipp Hochmair

Release Date – 2016

Title – ‘Amias‘

Director – John Giordano

Starring – Joren Seldeslachts, Celine Verbeeck, Marco Bellusci

Release Date – 2013

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Heya! It’s a great week on Dekkoo as we’ve added ‘Tomcat‘, a brilliant, beautiful, and moving portrait of a gay relationship at the edge – so to speak. It won the Teddy award for best feature film in 2016 and in a little bit I’ll talk more about the Teddy in case you’re unfamiliar with it.

But first! It’s always good to start with a short film before diving into the main course and this week we’re bringing you ‘Amias‘ from John Girodano. It’s a lyrical short film that deals with one man’s confusion between the woman he cares for and the man he loves. The music in the film really takes you on a meaningful journey through his splintered mind and it’s the perfect set-up to the intense relationship drama of ‘Tomcat‘.

‘Tomcat‘ comes to us from Austria. Written and directed by Handl Klaus ‘Tomcat‘ delves into the relationship between Andreas and Stefan. It seems they have everything: money, friends, love, but one day everything they took for granted comes tumbling down after an act of random violence changes the dynamic of their relationship. I don’t want to reveal what the act of violence is, but it proves that even small amounts of hurt can become amplified beyond control.

Since I can’t really delve into the film dynamics due to spoilers it’s the perfect time to talk about a prestigious award you might not know much about – The Teddy. Every year during the Berlinale festival the best LGBTQ feature, short, and documentary films are awarded grand prizes by an independent jury that solely focuses on the queer films presented at the Berlinale. Started in 1987 by Wieland Speck (current president of the Panorama section of Berlinale) and Manfred Salzgeber (filmmaker and founder of Edition Salzgeber – a German film distribution company) the Teddy award is now the most famous prize for a queer film at a major film festival. Since its inception it’s awarded prizes to many now-famous filmmakers like Todd Haynes, Pedro Almodovar, Gus Van Sant, and Francois Ozon.

At Dekkoo we have quite a few Teddy award-winners – ‘In The Name Of‘, ‘Raging Sun, Raging Sky‘, ‘Absent‘, and ‘The Bubble‘ just to name a few! You can check out the full list of winners here.

Enjoy!

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Watch ’em with: A lover you can cry with.

Mix it with: Lots of alcohol.

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One Great Gay Shot – ‘Tomcat’ (2016)

‘Tomcat‘ is now available on Dekkoo.com!

New This Week – 8/11/17

Winner of the coveted Teddy Award for Best LGBT Feature at the Berlin International Film Festival, this provocative drama follows Andreas and Stefan, a gay couple whose happy life together is shaken to the core after an unexpected and inexplicable outburst of violence. ‘Tomcat’ is now available on Dekkoo!

Connor is going to kill himself. But first, he’s throwing a going away party to say goodbye to all his friends. Problem is, he doesn’t seem to have any friends. Watch ‘The Going Away Party’ now available on Dekkoo!

‘Trip to Hell and Back‘ is a documentary follows the true story of Trip Harting, one of the most famous horse riders in the United States who led a double life as one of the largest meth dealers in Washington DC’s gay underground drug scene.

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Coming next week: James Bond himself, Daniel Craig, bares his body and soul in this twisted portrait of a tortured real-life artist.

One Great Gay Shot – ‘Center of My World’ (2016)

‘Center of My World’ – Coming soon to Dekkoo!

New This Week – 8/4/17

When his long-term partner hurls him headfirst into fatherhood, troubled TV personality Steven Evans starts to shed his playboy reputation and embrace his new loving family bond… until an unexpected visitor arrives to shake everything up. Watch ‘The Dream Children’ on Dekkoo!

New Year’s Eve 1999 finds college-bound Clark and Trevor concerned about the future of their friendship, and a request for Clark to be Trevor’s wingman ensures things will never be the same again. Watch ‘Tomorrow’ on Dekkoo!

‘Making It Big’ is a reality series that follows the lives of seven friends, each with a unique connec-tion to the LGBTQ+ community, living abroad in Barcelona. While attempting to establish their ca-reers in a foreign land, their struggles coming of age and coming out in Ireland and Great Britain are revealed.

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Coming next week: A harrowing relationship drama will linger with you long after the credits roll. It won the coveted Teddy Award at Berlin International Film Festival.

DEKKOO DISPATCH 028 – ‘VITO’

Title – ‘Vito‘

Director – Jeffrey Schwartz

Release Date – 2011

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Today we at Dekkoo are paying tribute to Vito Russo: activist, author, academic, film fanatic, and most importantly a friend and father-figure to every LGBTQ member of our community. Jeffrey Schwartz’s 2011 film ‘Vito‘ is a stirring tribute to this legendary trailblazer of queer cinema and HIV/AIDS activism.

Growing up and browsing the shelves at Blockbuster I’d always walk by a tattered old looking DVD entitled ‘The Celluloid Closet’. Once I finally had made my way through most of the sexy films I’d been dying to rent I finally checked it out one night. The amount of queer stories that had to be hidden underneath various guises through time was sobering of what I had been accustomed to given my young age. ‘The Celluloid Closet’ was based on Vito Russo’s novel of the same name published in 1981 with the subtitle “Homosexuality in the Movies”. It woke people up to queer tropes like the predatory lesbian and the sissy homosexual. Vito truly believed that these tropes were perpetuating the oppression of gay people and that media needed to change in order for society to change. Vito wasn’t just sitting at home writing though. He went on college tours lecturing about his work and about queer cinema in general.

After publishing ‘The Celluloid Closet’ Vito Russo went on to form the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. That’s right, Vito Russo formed GLAAD! They’re the ones that to this day keep a very close eye on everything happening in media around the world and hold them accountable for their actions. And as much as I get annoyed with how much they hit me up for cash, they’ve done some great stuff like issuing a Studio Responsibility Index that ranks the major Hollywood studios by the quantity, quality, and content of LGBTQ representation in the films they produce.

Vito also left a big imprint on HIV/AIDS activism in the 80s through his involvement in the Gay Activists Alliance & ACT UP, his creation of a gay TV series called ‘Our Time’, and his participation in the 1989 Academy Award-winning documentary ‘Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt’. He told the story of his lover Jeffrey Sevcik who passed away from his battle with AIDS. The directors of ‘Our Time’ are Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman. Besides directing masterpieces like ‘The Times of Harvey Milk’ and ‘Word is Out’ they also were the ones to lovingly direct ‘The Celluloid Closet’ after Vito had passed away from his own battle with AIDS.

I’ve left you with a very basic skeleton of what Vito Russo did with his life, but when you watch ‘Vito‘ you’ll actually see his whole body and hopefully see even deeper.

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Watch it with: A group of friends who appreciate gay heroes!

Mix it with: Beers!

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New This Week – 7/21/17

‘Stray‘ is a brom-com in which Jay, a brash gay dude, and Rich, a nerdy straight guy, navigate sexuality and friendship in New York City. When Rich and Jay, once college buddies, reconnect after years apart, Rich discovers Jay is gay, even though Jay has been out as long as they’ve known each other. Rich’s repeated miscues earns Jay’s constant ridicule.

Don’t forget to check out our Dekkoo interview with ‘Stray’ creator Pablo Andreu!

This revealing documentary invites you into the day-to-day lives of gay dads Scott, Steve, Randy and Drew, who are fathers through adoption, co-parenting and surrogacy. These men represent a new possibility, showing how in a modern world gay parenting can transform from a distant dream into a reality. Watch ‘Fatherhood Dreams’ on Dekkoo!

The insecurities of sexual attraction, intimacy and connection are explored in the sensual short film, ‘Last Night‘.

From John Greyson (‘Lilies’) comes ‘Proteus‘, a thrilling and erotic historical gay love story set in a South African penal colony during the 1720’s when sodomy was punishable by death.

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Coming next week: “An emotionally powerful documentary portrait with an impassioned voice.” – The Hollywood Reporter