Category: New Release

A new short-form comedy series celebrates the power of drag

Starring Prescott Seymour (also known by their famed drag persona “Sutton Lee Seymour”) and writer/creator John Wascavage as the series leads, What a Drag is a brand-new comedy web series available now on Dekkoo! A short form digital series, the first season features seven episodes, all five to eight minutes in length.

What A Drag follows Preston (Seymour), a brassy drag queen, and Ben (Wascavage), an on-again-off-again actor, as they navigate the insane she-nanigans life throws at them.

From makeup mishaps, to dating nightmarish social media influencers, to a blindsiding medical diagnosis, these two queens make lemon-drop-martinis out of lemons as they untuck the power of found family.

Based on true events, the comedic series explores the power of the art form of drag within the queer community. In a time when drag has never been more mainstream, What A Drag peels back the curtain and focuses in on one of drag’s most magical aspects: its ability to transcend.

Watch the trailer for What a Drag below. The full first season is available now on Dekkoo.

Now Available: Parallel Sons

A gay indie classic and film festival favorite from 1995, Parallel Sons follows the relationship that develops between a white teen who identifies as black and a young black man who has been wounded while escaping prison.

Seth (Gabriel Mann) is a youth with artistic leanings, a fascination with Black pop culture and a dead-end life in an Adirondack village. He’s alternatively sensitive and brutal with Kristen (Heather Gottlieb), who wants a sexual relationship that he explosively rejects.

Late one night, as he’s closing the cafe where he works, a young Black man attempts to rob him at gun point but faints from illness. Seth takes the man, Knowledge (Laurence Mason), an escapee from a nearby prison, to a family cabin where he nurses him and they begin a tentative friendship. When the sheriff learns of Seth’s harboring a fugitive, a major confrontation looms.

Watch the original trailer for Parallel Sons below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: GUO4

A confrontation between two swimmers in a locker room ends in tears in the experimental short film/pseudo-music video GUO4.

The film is directed by Peter Strickland, the acclaimed British filmmaker behind Berberian Sound Studio, The Duke of Burgundy, In Fabric and the upcoming Flux Gourmet. Using only still frames and the sounds of avant-garde music duo GUO, the film depicts an act of male aggression that can’t help but double as a homoerotic wrestling match.

“The framing of traditionally macho scenarios in a homoerotic context takes its cues from the covert porn of Bob Mizer,” said Strickland. “With his films in mind, I wanted to make something arousing that could be disguised as a morality tale about the impudence of ‘manspreading’ in locker rooms. The combination of muscle and beat-up lockers somehow evoked the music in my mind.”

GUO is the duo of guitarist and singer Daniel Blumberg and saxophonist Seymour Wright. Both use heavy distortion and extreme amplification which is later processed and manipulated with metal cassettes to create a multi-layered, lacquered object of sinister, fizzing, metallic beauty.

Check out the poster for GUO4 below. The film is available now on Dekkoo.

Watch a thirty-second trailer for the brand-new Dekkoo-Original short comedy Thirty Candles

From director Jono Mitchell and screenwriter Madison Hatfield, the brand-new 13-minute short comedy Thirty Candles is a charming homage to the John Hughes classic Sixteen Candles, but with a decidedly gay twist.

Baker (Brandon Lee Browning) is turning 30 today… and he’s not thrilled about it. His long-distance best friend Hugh (DeMarius Copes) calls him up bright and early to celebrate and preemptively offset the birthday blues, but it’s no use. The ladies at the office seems to be planning some kind of embarrassing workplace surprise party. Sucking it up, Baker puts on his snazziest suit and sets off to work… only to find that the party is not for him, but a pregnant co-worker. What’s worse than everyone making a big deal out of your 30th birthday? No one remembering!

Luckily for Baker, the one person that does seem to remember his special day is Mike Bryan (Lee Osorio), the handsome IT guy of his deepest romantic fantasies. Suddenly, this milestone birthday might go from being the worst ever to the best.

With witty writing and charismatic performances, Thirty Candles is a clever and heartwarming short rom-com worth savoring. Watch a 30-second trailer for the film below. The full short is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Plantonic

For anyone who has ever had trouble finding their soulmate, Plantonic poses an attractive fantastical question: what if you could grow the perfect man?

A wildly inventive short film from writer-director Krit Komkrichwarakool, Plantonic follows the unique relationship that grows (literally) between a young aspiring artist and the handsome hunk that sprouts, fully-formed, from his garden.

Well… kind of. There’s actually a lot more going on in this beautifully-shot, deeply-emotional 15-minute romance. The clever fable at the film’s core is woven inside a moving story of real-world heartbreak that is sure to stir up some tears.

Lead actors Josh Pyman and Kenny Brain have great chemistry and are effective at selling both the film’s grounded and fantastical aspects. Plantonic also marks Komkrichwarakool as a talented director to keep an eye on in the future. We can’t wait to see what he does next.

Watch a short trailer for Plantonic below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

Now Available: Down in Paris

Antony Hickling wrote, directed and stars in the personal and beautifully evocative Down in Paris, which follows a troubled gay filmmaker at a creative and personal crossroad through one unusually eventful night.

Richard (Hickling) is a gay movie director in his forties who finds himself suddenly overwhelmed with crippling anxiety in the middle of a night shoot for his latest project. Without saying a word to his cast and crew, he walks off the set and wanders through the Paris streets in search of answers and hopefully, the inspiration to continue.

During his long dark night of the soul, Richard bonds with a British woman he meets in a bar, runs into an old boyfriend, visits an eerily profound fortuneteller and has a myriad of other random encounters (including a memorable visit to a gay sex club).

Some of these encounters are warm, some disturbing, others life affirming. None, however, quite provides what Richard is seeking. As dawn approaches, he must confront his fears and question his deepest desires in order to find renewal to continue his life journey.

Watch the trailer for Down in Paris below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Rolling Around

On a family holiday in the mountains, Xavier (Florent Médina) is forced to go hiking with Fred (Thierry Préval), his big sister’s boyfriend, whom he does not seem to like very much.

During their multi-day hike, which Xavier’s sister sat out due to a sprained ankle, the two young men finally get to know each other – and like each other. They’re quickly growing bond becomes quite strong… until Xavier begins to develop feelings for Fred and makes an unexpected move.

Sensing a great tension and desire brewing beneath the surface, Xavier makes his case for why the two of them should take advantage of their alone time and express their true feelings. But does Fred really feel the same way? And is their blissful trip worth a secret family betrayal?

With gorgeous visuals and compelling performances, Thierry Préval – who pulls triple duty as the film’s writer, director and star – ratchets up the tension from the get-go. Rolling Around offers up a rich and deeply contemplative study of gay longing in just 22 minutes.

Watch a short trailer for Rolling Around below. The film is available now on Dekkoo.

Don’t miss this award-winning biopic about one of the past century’s most celebrated gay artists

Award-winning filmmaker Dome Karukoski brings to screen the life and work of one of the most influential and celebrated figures of 20th century LGBTQ life.

Known to the world as Tom of Finland, artist Touko Laaksonen shaped the fantasies of a generation of gay men with his proudly erotic and taboo-shattering drawings of testosterone-filled, muscle-bound men. But who was the man behind the leather?

This stirring biopic follows his life from the trenches of WWII and repressive Finnish society of the 1950s through his struggle to get his work published in California, where he and his art were finally embraced amid the sexual revolution of the 1970s.

Tom’s story is one of love, courage and perseverance, mirroring the gay liberation movement for which his leather-clad studs served as a defiant emblem.

Watch the trailer for Tom of Finland below. The film is available now on Dekkoo.

Now Available: Coming Clean

From the heart of the Amazon comes Coming Clean, an amazing compilation of LGBTQ+ short films from emerging Latin American directors from Brazil and Peru. These thought-provoking stories prove that universal social themes have no borders.

In The Last Romantics, two young men share their different points of view on the same sexual encounter in a public space. Savage Fire takes place in the city of Cajamar, where lonely characters deal with the police, rodeos and some mysterious fires.

My Only Earth is the Moon follows Sergio, who answers thirty six questions on order to make his crush Gabriel fall in love. Sandra Calling is an emotional short about a man who is trying to grieve for his lost mother while dealing with all the practical things that need to happen in the wake of a parent’s death.

Finally, Carlito Leaves Forever, directed under the supervision of Werner Herzog, takes place in the heart of the Amazon jungle and follows a silent young man who sets out on an epic canoe trip. An encounter soon reveals a secret he had been hiding from his community.

Watch the trailer for Coming Clean below. The full compilation is now available on Dekkoo.

Don’t miss the charming and unusual LGBTQ rom-com Straight Up

A major hit at film festivals when it first premiered in 2019, writer-director James Sweeney’s Straight Up is one of the best gay rom-coms of the past several years.

Sweeney himself stars as Todd, a hyper-articulate and obsessive compulsive twentysomething whose frustration over the gay dating scene leads him to a baffling conclusion: maybe he’s actually straight?!

When Todd meets Rory, a witty and equally whip-smart young actress played by Katie Findlay, the two form a strong connection and try to enter into a hetero relationship together – one that turns out to be all talk and no sex.

Can the two get past their hang-ups and make a real go at a loving and committed asexual relationship? Or are they just good friends who are fooling themselves?

Featuring razor-sharp dialog that evokes classic Hollywood, but with distinctly 21st century references, Straight Up is a deeply funny and charming crowd-pleaser that explores just how elastic our definitions of love and sexuality can get.

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