Category: International Film

Director Bertrand Mandico offers up a visually stunning queer allegory with ‘The Wild Boys’

The Wild Boys, the debut feature from prolific French short film director Bertrand Mandico, is ready to blow your mind.

Set on a small island at the beginning of the 20th century, the film tells the tale of five adolescent boys (all played by female-identifying actresses) who come from wealthy families, but find themselves increasingly drawn to the occult.

Looking to explore lives of crime and transgression, the group collectively commits a brutal crime – aided by ‘Trevor,’ a strange deity of chaos they can’t seem to control.

The boys are soon punished, forced to board a boat with a lecherous sea captain who is hell-bent on taming their ferocious appetites. They arrive on a lush island where dangers and pleasures abound… and the boys start to transform in both mind and body.

Gorgeously shot on 16mm and brimming with homoeroticism, genderfluidity and sly, subversive humor, The Wild Boys will take you on a heady, hedonistic journey you won’t soon forget. It’s a colorful, unique and strangely funny underground queer masterpiece.

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

‘In the Room Where He Waits’ comes to Dekkoo just in time for Halloween!

Set sometime during the earlier days of the pandemic, In the Room Where He Waits is a queer psychological horror film that uses isolation to its advantage.

Daniel Monks stars at Tobin Wade, an up-and-coming theatre actor who is about to have his first major break on Broadway in a production of ‘The Glass Menagerie.’ His plans change, however, when he learns of his father’s recent passing and is forced to return home to Australia for the funeral.

Stuck in a Brisbane hotel room while he waits out his two-week quarantine, Tobin begins to unravel. He’s not ready to confront a past he thought he’d long ago left behind. Things take an even darker turn when he begins to notice traces of another person in his room.

Soon, the hotel’s dark past and Tobin’s own repressions coalesce, manifesting in a malignant force that only grows stronger with each passing night.

The feature-length debut of short film director Timothy Despina Marshall, In the Room Where He Waits is a clever and stylishly-crafted exploration of grief, identity and the supernatural.

Watch the trailer for In the Room Where He Waits below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Before You Go

The 14-minute short Before You Go follows Daniel (Nícola Vilander) and his best friend Franco (Joaquín Batarce), who are on a camping trip together at a remote lake in Patagonia.

When their backpack and tent fall down a cliff, they’re forced to seek shelter during a storm. Finding an unoccupied cabin, they decide to break a window and trespass inside.

Alone together in the house, they begin to celebrate their last days together before going their separate ways for college. Daniel is yet to come clean about his feelings for Franco, but as their time together comes to a close and their trip takes more than a few harrowing turns, the true nature of their feelings will be brought to the fore.

Beautifully crafted by co-directors Vicente del Río Laya and Hans von Marées Pededeand and packed with subtle emotion and sexual tension, Before You Go is a bittersweet coming-of-age short about the early romantic infatuations that linger.

Watch a short teaser for Before You Go below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

An alluring stranger comes between three witchy siblings in the supernatural thriller ‘Cheat’

Originally produced by the Filipino network Hue TV, the new ‘Boys’ Love’ film Cheat is a campy psychological thriller with supernatural undercurrents.

A tale of stolen innocence, the film follows Vee (Daryll Rodriguez), an alluring and mysterious young man who comes from an unusually sheltered upbringing. When he befriends Dong, Jennifer and Jay (Migo de Vera, Allora Alcantara and Victor Relosa), a family of three siblings, along with their mother (Tuesday Vargas), who dabbles in witchcraft, his strange charms set off a series of events that will inflict devastating consequences.

As all three siblings begin to fall in love with the unusual stranger, jealously, lust and betrayal rear their ugly heads and Vee’s mere presence in the family’s life threatens to tear them apart.

With edgy supernatural soap opera vibes in the vein of ‘Supernatural’ or ‘Charmed,’ Cheat delves into the maelstrom of intimate relationships within a tightly knit family. It’s also got style and sex appeal to spare.

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

Three fugitives make a road movie in the edgy queer thriller ‘You Can’t Escape Lithuania’

After his star actress, Indre (Irina Lavrinovic), is suspected of murdering her mother, rich-kid filmmaker Romas (Denisas Kolomyckis) plans her escape from Lithuania. His sexy Mexican boyfriend Carlos (Adrian Escobar) helps them reluctantly.

On the road, Romas begins shooting an improvised experimental film of their harrowing trip with his smartphone. As events take an unexpected turn, their secrets, memories and emotions make this journey wilder than any film Romas could have imagined.

Stylish and supremely sexy, the gripping gay road thriller You Can’t Escape Lithuania comes Romas Zabarauskas, the prolific queer artist and filmmaker behind Porno Melodrama, The Lawyer and We Will Riot – who loosely based it around some of his own real-life experiences.

Zabarauskas funded the movie though Kickstarter… even going so far as to get naked on camera for donors in order to raise the necessary money (something, you’ll be happy to know, his incredibly attractive cinematic counterpart also does in the film).

Watch the trailer for You Can’t Escape Lithuania below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

A married man discovers a sensual gay paradise in the erotic drama ‘Behind the Trees’

The third feature film from Thiago Cazado, the versatile Brazilian writer, director and performer behind About Us and Cousins, Behind the Trees is a mesmeric erotic drama about a macho married man who discovers a hidden paradise of sexual freedom.

Leo Carius stars as Paulo, the married man in question. He’s in a toxic relationship with his wife Jessica, played by Maria Guedes. After the pair have a serious argument, Paulo decides to go cycling to blow off some steam. He ends up getting lost in a remote region of the woods known as ‘The Forest of Whispers,’ a secret place where men meet up for anonymous sexual release.

Unhappy in his marriage, Paulo begins to frequent the forest, having no idea how much his life is about to change – especially after he meets Luigi, a young, carefree and sexually confident fellow cruiser played by writer-director Cazado. After the two men share hot encounter, Paulo quickly realizes that nothing will ever be the same again.

Having starred in all of his feature films to date, Cazado has shown a wide range as both a director and a performer.

Tender and provocative, thoughtful and sexually brazen, Behind the Trees is a deeply intimate addition to his growing collection of boundary-pushing stories and characters.

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

A supernatural intervention brings closure to a complicated love affair in the Bollywood melodrama ‘Love is Love’

Taking inspiration from Ghost, the wildly campy Indian melodrama Love is Love tells the story of a complicated relationship that ended far too soon.

Jumping around in time, the film follows the romantic relationship that develops between childhood friends Aryan and Ashley (Kapil Kaustubh Sharma and Yuvraaj Parashar).

Though it took them a while to come to terms with their feelings – and caused much gossip within their tightknit circle of friends – the pair found their way into one another’s open arms.

When Ashley dies unexpectedly, it shakes Aryan to his very core. After two failed suicide attempts, an otherworldly intervention ensues. Ashley, aided by an older female sex worker with psychic abilities, reaches out to Aryan from beyond the grave in an effort to bring perspective and closure to their tragic love affair.

Originally created as part of a trilogy and re-edited for this U.S. release, Love is Love stirred up controversy in India as one of few Bollywood films to prominently feature gay characters and themes.

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