Category: Gay Film

Once a Year on Blackpool Sands follows two coal miners and secret gay lovers during one night in 1953

Based on a stage play of the same name, Once a Year on Blackpool Sands is a powerful new British drama inspired by real events – regarding an extraordinary night in 1953, several days after the Queen’s Coronation.

Macaulay Cooper and Kyle Brooks star as Tommy and Eddy, coal miners and secret gay lovers who spend their holiday at a quirky bed and breakfast in Blackpool, along with a few other “alternative” members of society. Together, they summon up the courage to do the first fabled walk towards Gay Pride.

Written and directed by Karlton Parris, the film offers a rare glimpse into an underrepresented era in LGBTQ history. Touching and poignant, Once a Year on Blackpool Sands portrays the lives of working-class gay men and the women who supported them in a time when homosexuality was a crime.

Watch the trailer for Once a Year on Blackpool Sands below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Vacation takes a twisted turn in the demented queer horror/comedy Road Head

Filmmaker David Del Rio, who recently made a transition from acting to feature film directing with 2018’s Sick for Toys, is back with a brand-new follow-up.

Road Head is a wild, weird and decidedly queer horror-comedy starring Elizabeth Grullon, Damian Joseph Quinn and Clayton Farris. The film follows three friends who take a road trip to the Mojave Desert. Their complicated relationships are soon pushed to their breaking point when they run afoul of a murderous cult.

Sort of like The Hills Have Eyes with a queer comedy twist, Road Head is packed with violent thrills, witty dialogue and hilarious barbed commentary about toxic masculinity.

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

Alan Cumming and Garrett Dillahunt star in the emotional period piece Any Day Now

From writer-director Travis Fine, Any Day Now is a fact-based drama starring Alan Cumming and Garrett Dillahunt. Set in the late-1970s, the film follows a gay couple who take in a child with down syndrome, played by Isaac Levya.

Once their new living arrangement is discovered by the local authorities, the men find that they must fight their way through an unjust and incredibly discriminatory legal system to adopt the child they have come to love as their own.

A deeply moving drama which takes a look at a difficult time in history, Any Day Now earned rave reviews from critics and won audience awards at over ten film festivals when it first made the rounds in 2012, including Tribeca where it premiered. Alan Cumming was also given Best Actor awards from Outfest, Seattle, Key West and Napa Valley film festivals.

Watch the trailer for Any Day Now below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

Two bullies flirt with the wrong girl in the dark revenge comedy Groupers

Two homophobic high school bullies flirt with the wrong girl at a club in Groupers, a controversial new film from writer-director Anderson Cowan.

After picking up drunken teens Brad and Dylan (Peter Mayer-Klepchick and Cameron Duckett) in a bar, Meg (Nicole Dambro) drugs them and ties them up in an empty swimming pool at an abandoned house.

She selected them because they were inflicting homophobic terror on her gay little brother, who recently attempted suicide. Now she’s using them for her thesis project, an experiment to prove that sexuality is not a choice.

Thesis papers, online revenge, Chinese finger traps, philosophical house squatters, dim witted street thugs and grown men riding tricycles all intersect in this wild and proudly unconventional new dark comedy.

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

Filmmaker Alex Liu gets to the bottom of sex education in this frank and funny new documentary

A huge hit with critics and audiences at film festivals, A Sexplanation is a proudly queer and Asian American comedic sex documentary about the unusual search for love, connection and family acceptance.

Like many Americans, writer/director/host Alex Liu’s childhood sex education left much to be desired. Years of repression left him feeling disconnected from his own body, his desires as a gay man and even his family. Now out and proud in his thirties, Alex decides it’s time to turn his years of fear and loathing into something more positive and humorous.

From neuroscience labs to church pews, A Sexplanation features provocative conversations with psychologists, sex researchers and even a Jesuit priest. With humor and grit, Alex takes audiences on a playful and heartfelt journey from a shame-filled past to a happier, healthier and much sexier future.

Oh, and he also sits down with his parents. That’s a highlight that you won’t want to miss.

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

Short Film Spotlight: Intrinsic Moral Evil

“If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite.”

Using gorgeous cinematography, quick editing, slow motion effects and three immensely talented performers, Intrinsic Moral Evil is a captivating 10-minute dance piece brought to life in the most cinematic way possible.

Beginning with a personal opening narration, the dance tells a story of masculine identity and growing up. Three dancers play games with the viewer’s perception and expectations. Are we watching a memory, a dream, the search for identity or possibly all three things at once?

Filmed in 2013 in the Netherlands by writer/director Harm Weistra, Intrinsic Moral Evil is a layered piece of work which invites the audience to make their own interpretations while marveling at the movement on screen.

Watch a short trailer for Intrinsic Moral Evil below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

Four same-sex couples and their kids are profiled in the uplifting new documentary Papa & Dada

A new documentary from award-winning Swiss director Daniela Ambrosoli, Papa & Dada shows what it means to raise children as a gay couple.

Four same-sex couples, including the famous ballet dancer John Lam and his husband John Ruggieri, talk about of the tough challenges and inspiring joys they experienced along to road to becoming a family.

The film paints a loving portrait of ordinary family life, showing how two fathers experience the same worries, hardships, joys and challenges as straight couples. The unconditional love shown to the children runs like a thread through the film – unobtrusive, but always present.

Funny, touching and inspiring, the film ultimately aims to prove that sexual orientation has nothing to do with raising a child. Being a parent simply means giving love. Period.

Watch the trailer for Papa & Dada below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.