Category: International Film

The provocative queer punk classic ‘Fögi is a Bastard’ gets a brand-new HD restoration

Set in Zurich during the early 1970s and boasting a killer soundtrack that includes the likes of punk legends The Stooges and The Velvet Underground, Fögi is a Bastard is an unflinchingly honest depiction of teenage infatuation and obsession from director Marcel Gisler.

Vincent Branchet stars as Beni, a sensitive 15-year-old romantic who has become completely besotted by Fögi (Frederic Andrau), the super-sexy front man to a local punk outfit called The Minks.

The wide-eyed, seemingly innocent Beni – who begins his courting of Fögi with lovingly penned letters – is welcomed into the gay punk musician’s world of partying and playing gigs. However, as Fögi slowly drifts from an ambitious music career to the addictive world of drugs, a wedge forms in their relationship.

Soon enough, Beni has become a submissive “dog” in their relationship and also begins supporting his lover through sex work.

With its raw depiction of urban life, ghettoized youth, working class angst and kinky gay male sex without compromise, Fögi is a Bastard is a must see for fans of coming-of-age cinema with alternative queer teen sensibilities and aesthetics.

Originally released in 1998, the film has been given a brand-new restoration by the cult distribution label Altered Innocence. It’s now available to stream on Dekkoo. Watch the trailer below.

A weekend of mischief becomes a battle for survival in the stylish British thriller ‘B&B’

A gay couple pays a price for exercising their rights in this award-winning thriller from writer-director Joe Ahearne.

Sean Teale and Tom Bateman star in B&B as partners Fred and Marc. A year before the main events of the film, they were denied a room at St. Jude bed and breakfast by its fundamentalist Christian owner Josh (Paul McGann). They took the matter to court, won a discrimination suit and have now returned.

Though Fred would happily take the victory and move on, Marc is excited to rub some salt in Josh’s wound – insisting on sleeping as a married couple in the home of a man who has made his resentment known.

Events take a deadly turn when another guest, with far more sinister intentions, arrives. Marc and Fred’s weekend of fun turns into a suspenseful battle for survival.

With plenty of twists and turns, this clever Hitchcock homage will keep you guessing to the bitter end.

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

Short Film Spotlight: Pipes

Fast-paced and visually inventive, Pipes, an impressively animated black and white short from co-directors Jessica Meier, Kilian Feusi and Sujanth Ravichandran, is packed with deliciously funny incident.

The 4-minute, dialog-free film follows an anthropomorphic cartoon bear who works as a plumber and is tasked with fixing the pipes at a kinky gay nightclub.

Shocked at the hedonistic display of gay pleasure on the dance floor, a fear of the unknown soon takes him over. His mind wanders down a kaleidoscopic rabbit hole of gay panic where pipes become body parts and body parts become pipes before he comes to his senses and realizes that there was never anything to be afraid of in the first place.

Cleverly-crafted, the film builds a bizarre cartoon world you won’t soon forget. If you’re never seen an animated alien do poppers before, you’re in for a weirdly specific treat!

Check out the poster for Pipes below. The short film is now streaming on Dekkoo. And, despite the cuddly characters and the positive message, be warned that this film is for grown-up viewers only.

A man attempts a turbulent journey out of the closet in the moving drama ‘El Houb (The Love)’

Having spent decades hiding his sexuality from his family, Moroccan-Dutch businessman Karim (Fahd Larhzaoui) decides to come clean after his father catches him in bed with a man.

Caught up in a panic over the thought of coming out to his traditional Muslim parents (Slimane Dazi and Lubna Azabal), he barricades himself in their closet… literally.

As he feverishly revisits his childhood memories, negotiates a budding romance with a new Ghanaian boyfriend (Emmanuel Boafo) and wages a long-delayed battle royale to uproot his family’s conservative attitudes, a series of darkly hilarious and unflinchingly frank conversations begin – and the family is finally forced to confront the truths that have so long been avoided.

Loosely based on the theater work and actual experiences of lead actor and co-screenwriter Fahd Larhzaoui, El Houb (The Love) cascades through time. Director Shariff Nasr manages to straddle a line between uproarious comedy and heartbreaking drama while examining family dynamics, cultural taboos and hard-won self-acceptance.

Watch the trailer for El Houb (The Love) below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

‘Teenage Kicks’ navigates a sweat-soaked journey through the minefield of adolescence

In the final moments of his 17th year, Mik’s world will come crashing down.

His plans to run away and escape the hold of his migrant family have been brutally undone by the accidental death of his older brother. Only Mik knows the events that led to this tragedy – and as far as he can see there is only one person to blame: himself.

He’s suddenly torn between his desire to head north and start a new life with his best friend and secret crush Dan and the sense of obligation he has to his broken family. Can he fill the shoes of his adored sibling or is he somehow inherently toxic and destined to bring ruin upon everyone he loves?

Featuring exceptionally brave performances from lead actors Miles Szanto and Daniel Webber, Teenage Kicks is a bold and unflinching coming-of-age drama.

Directed by award-winning Australian filmmaker Craig Boreham, the film takes viewers on a sweat-soaked journey through the minefield of adolescence as Mik searches for a way through his guilt – and explosive sexual awakening – to find the man he’s meant to be.

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

A well-to-do gay couple cause neighborhood conflicts in the dark comedy ‘Concerned Citizen’

Concerned Citizen follows Ben and Raz (Shlomi Bertonov and Ariel Wolf), a young, attractive and financially secure gay couple who move to a migrant neighborhood in Tel Aviv.

After buying a renovated apartment, they begin to seek a surrogate to help them start a family. Their attempt to create a cozy life is disrupted, however, when Ben, looking to beautify his new street, plants a sapling on their corner.

The tree is not welcomed by all and soon becomes a source of conflict. When matters turn physical, Ben gets the police involved. The situation thrusts his internal prejudices to the surface, racking the liberally-minded Ben with guilt, and forcing him to grapple with his own complicity in the systems of oppression surrounding him.

Winner of the Best Screenplay Prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival, Israeli director Idan Haguel’s film is a morally complex, refreshingly smart dark comedy about personal responsibility and the uneasy balance between assuming the identity of a “concerned” citizenry and the adoption of a victim complex.

Concerned Citizen is a challenging, satirical parable for our times, with themes as relevant to contemporary Tel Aviv as any large city in the world.

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

Short Film Spotlight: A Bela é Poc

An intense short film from Brazilian writer-director Eric Lima and co-writer/star Taciano Soares, A Bela é Poc follows a proudly queer young man who is stuck living within a harsh environment that threatens his happiness at every turn.

Belinho (Soares), a devoted Francophile, dreams of a glamorous life on the stage, but his day-to-day reality is something quite different. Working to support his ailing, homophobic father, he’s constantly dodging threats of violence from the people in his community.

Nonetheless, with support from Mara, his best friend and biggest fan (Isabela Catao in a scene-stealing performance), he soldiers on, refusing to suppress himself for the closed-minded comfort of those around him.

But when he’s served a one-two punch of life-altering tragedies, Belinho risks drifting off into his Edith Piaf-inspired fantasy world for good.

With high energy performances, exceptional camera work and one particularly electric homage to My Own Private Idaho, A Bela é Poc offers up a hard-hitting examination of one man’s admirable resilience in the face of overwhelming adversity.

Check out the poster for A Bela é Poc below. The short film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Survivors speak out in director David France’s riveting documentary ‘Welcome to Chechnya’

With searing urgency and uncommon bravery, the eye-opening documentary Welcome to Chechnya shadows a group of activists who risk unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ purge raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic.

Since 2017, Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has waged a depraved operation to “cleanse the blood” of LGBTQ Chechens, overseeing a campaign to detain, torture and execute them. Operating without the sanction of the Kremlin, activists take matters into their own hands.

In this riveting and deeply affecting piece of work, David France, the acclaimed, award-winning director behind How to Survive a Plague, uses a remarkable hands-on approach to expose this atrocity and tell the story of an extraordinary group of people literally putting their lives on the line to confront evil and make not just Chechnya, but the whole world a better place for the LGBTQ community.

Watch the trailer for Welcome to Chechnya below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.