Category: New Release

Ira Sachs’ emotional gay relationship drama Keep the Lights On comes to Dekkoo

The critically-acclaimed 2012 relationship drama Keep the Lights On chronicles the emotionally and sexually charged journey of two men in New York City through love, friendship and addiction.

Documentary filmmaker Erik (Thure Lindhardt) and closeted lawyer Paul (Zachary Booth) meet through a casual encounter, but soon find a deeper connection and become a couple.

Individually and together, they are risk takers – compulsive, and fueled by drugs and sex. In an almost decade-long relationship defined by highs, lows, and dysfunctional patterns, Erik struggles to negotiate his own boundaries and dignity while being true to himself.

The film’s fearlessly personal screenplay, written by director Ira Sachs (The Delta, Love is Strange, Little Men, Frankie) is anchored by Lindhardt, who embodies Erik’s isolation and vulnerability with a gentle presence. Harrowing and romantic, visceral and layered, Keep the Lights On is a film that looks at love and all of its manifestations, taking it to dark depths and bringing it back to a place of grace.

Watch the trailer for Keep the Lights On below. The film is available now on Dekkoo.

Actor Sam Harris gets personal in a filmed performance of his stage show HAM: A Musical Memoir

Based on the bestselling collection of essays and the original stage show directed by “Pose” star Billy Porter, HAM: A Musical Memoir tells the comic and poignant true story of longtime recording artist and actor Sam Harris.

This new filmed version captures Sam’s critically acclaimed, multiple-award winning live stage show in which Harris plays himself at various ages, as well as ten other characters, recounting personal stories of friendship, love, celebrity, getting sober and growing up gay in the Bible Belt during the 1960s and ‘70s.

As he reached higher and higher levels of success – Broadway, television, albums, awards, a gig at Carnegie Hall – Sam realized that, for him, less is less… and more is never enough.

After the highs and lows of a life in show business, Sam is finally forced to confront the merciless question: what is enough?

Watch a short trailer for HAM: A Musical Memoir below. The full live performance is now available on Dekkoo.

A gay single father starts acting out in the riveting drama Wandering Heart

Argentinian actor Leonardo Sbaraglia delivers a revelatory performance in the new gay family drama Wandering Heart. He stars as Santiago, a gay single father who has reached a tipping point in his life.

Reeling from a bitter breakup, he is also facing the impending departure of his young adult daughter Laila (played by Miranda de la Serna), with whom he shares a close yet emotionally-charged relationship.

As the fear of being alone threatens to swallow him whole, Santiago’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic and self-destructive. Over the course of a chaotic summer, divided between Argentina and Brazil, he must learn to let go of his daughter so that each of them can find their own freedoms.

Drawing complex, empathetic characters and employing unaffected dialog, Wandering Heart is deeply moving new drama that tells an intimate story about the intense longing to love and to be loved.

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

Short Film Spotlight: Sparrow

Written and directed by Welby Ings, Sparrow is a visually inventive 15-minute short film from New Zealand which follows an unusual young boy who believes he can fly.

Adorned with a set of homemade wings, he finds himself a frequent target of bullying at school. When he discovers the truth behind a family myth involving his war veteran grandfather, he finally discovers the strength to stand up to his abusers.

Visually stunning and deeply moving, Sparrow earned acclaim and awards at countless film festivals all around the globe when it was originally released in 2016.

Welby Ings recently made his feature-length debut with a boxing drama called Punch, which has also been earning a great deal of buzz at festivals over the past year and is expected to be released in the US in 2023.

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

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.