Category: New Release

Short Film Spotlight: Involuntary Activist

Aled (Rick Yale) is faced with an incredibly emotional dilemma when his sister tells him that his husband isn’t on the guest list to her wedding in Turkey.

Torn between alienating the sister he loves or doing something that goes against his own core values, Aled struggles to keep everyone happy.

Exploring the theme of conformity versus defiance – Involuntary Activist shows us how easy it is to stand for something in theory but what a different matter it is to stand for it in practice.

Filmed in Sweden, Involuntary Activist was written and directed by prolific short filmmaker Mikael Bundsen, a longtime protégé of Ruben Östlund (the internationally acclaimed director behind Force Majeure and The Square). His short Mother Knows Best (also available now on Dekkoo) competed at Berlinale and has won a number of awards, including the Iris Prize, and been screened worldwide, including Palm Springs, Thessaloniki and Sydney Film Festivals.

Involuntary Activist is available now on Dekkoo. Watch the trailer below.

A romantic encounter changes the life of a drag artist in the drama Your Eyes on Me

From writer-director Sergei Alexander, the British drama Your Eyes on Me tells the story of an experienced drag queen named Gloria (Paul Stone) whose life starts to change when she meets Kandi (Jean-Philippe Boriau) a younger drag-virgin who is auditioning for her next show.

As a bond begins to develop between Gloria and Kandi, their relationship takes an unexpected turn. Suddenly, the past, and the choices Gloria made as a young man, become a stark reality.

A Russian-born filmmaker who arrived in London in 2004, Alexander makes his feature-length debut with Your Eyes on Me. The film won major awards and acclaim at the 2020 London Independent Film Festival.

“Your Eyes on Me is a story of love, family, friendship and sexuality, one which can be read and interpreted on many different levels and through many different lenses,” said Alexander. “I hope that film will bring viewers on a thought-provoking and emotional journey, eliciting questions around their beliefs of love, self-acceptance and self-identity.”

Watch the trailer for Your Eyes on Me below. The film is available now on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Scaffolding

A director, producer, photographer and musician, Spanish artist Juanma Carrillo is a jack of all trades. He has been working in the audiovisual world since 2000, moving between avant-garde films and video art.

His short movies and video creations have been screened at film festivals all around the world and in cultural centers such as the Andalusia Film Library, the New York Queens Museum, the London Barbican Center and La Casa Encendida in Madrid.

Out of all of Carrillo’s varied works, his 2012 short film Scaffolding is easily one of the most acclaimed. A touching slow-burn meet-cute, the 14-minute film focuses on the tentative flirtation that builds between two next door neighbors.

Scaffolding follows Eduardo (Domingo Fernández), a somewhat snobby and generally grumpy journalist, and David (Paco Blázquez), a shy and sensitive young literature student. The two men are neighbors in a building under maintenance. Their tiny balconies are side-by-side, which affords each of them little privacy. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing? For six months they have never greeted each other… until the appearance of a scaffold which will uncover unexpected reactions in each one.

A heartwarming hit on the LGBTQ+ film festival circuit when it first debuted, Scaffolding is now available on Dekkoo.

Watch the first season of the charming and sexy new romantic comedy series Everything I Like

Daniel (Milton Roses), is an editor at a production company. When Javier (Esteban Masturini), a new cameraman, joins the crew, it upends Daniel’s life in ways he never expected. Though he’s always considered himself straight, Daniel begins to develop feelings for the alluring Javier.

Though he’s encouraged by his closest friends to finally come out of the closet, Daniel isn’t sure he’s ready. Once he admits to his bisexuality, he enters the world of online dating, embarking on an uncomfortable, often embarrassing and deeply funny journey through a new world of potential partners. All the while, however, he’s looking to work up the courage to tell Javier how he really feels… and to finally get over his fear of being naked in front of another person.

A funny, charming and sexy new 8-episode romantic comedy series from Argentina, the full first season of Everything I Like (also known as Todo lo que me gusta) is now available to stream on Dekkoo. Watch the trailer below.

Identity and LGBTQ rights become central to a tribe’s future in the new doc Moroni for President

The Navajo Nation is the largest Native American reservation in the United States. Every four years, the Navajo tribe elects its president, whom many consider the most powerful Native American in the country.

Moroni for President centers on Moroni Benally, an underdog candidate with radical ideas, whose homespun campaign originated out of frustration about the lack of progress in the reservation where he grew up. The witty academic embarks on a grueling, lonely campaign, discovering soon enough that theory does not necessarily prepare you for the daily dirt of politics.

As the election unfolds, the film delves into Moroni’s layered identity as a Mormon and gay Navajo man and, along the way, expands to include other LGBTQ+ characters working on some of the other campaigns. This includes Zachariah George, an eccentric assistant to the incumbent president; and Alray Nelson, an LGBTQ+ rights advocate and campaign manager of one of the frontrunners.

Simultaneously a behind-the-scenes look into a political campaign within a Native American community and an exploration of identities within said community, Moroni for President is an eye-opening and humorous portrait of a political race that runs surprisingly parallel to the current political landscape of the US at large.

Watch an extended trailer for Moroni for President below. The film is available now on Dekkoo.

Now Available: 7 Minutes

Written and directed by prolific short filmmaker Ricky Mastro, the hard-hitting drama 7 Minutes takes place in Toulouse and tells the story of Jean (accomplished French actor Antoine Herbez), a 55-year-old policeman who discovers his son, Maxime (Valentin Malguy), and his son’s boyfriend, Kevin (Paul Arvenne) hanged in a hotel room.

The autopsy shows that Maxime died from an overdose of GHB, just seven minutes after his boyfriend. During an evening organized by Maxime’s friends, Jean discovers the club BISOU, where his son used to go. There, he meets Fabien (Clément Naline).

Trying to know more about what happened to Maxime and Kevin, Jean goes to the club several times over and is quickly welcomed by the regulars, the Bisouers. But when Fabien becomes unusually attached to him, Jean starts mixing his mourning with a strong, possibly dangerous desire to discover more about his son’s world.

Watch the trailer for 7 Minutes below. The film is available now on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Bror

Written and directed by prolific short filmmaker Isabella Carbonell, the fourteen-minute short film Bror (“Brother”) takes place on the soccer field, following two longtime buddies as they cagily broach the subject of taking their friendship to the next level.

Nico (Philip Oros) and Khalid (Poyan Karimi) are best friends – and always have been. Khalid was born in Iran, a country where having feelings for another man can lead to the death penalty. Nico was born in Sweden, a country where it’s openly accepted for a man to have a boyfriend. And yet it’s Nico who keeps holding back when Khalid tries to take their relationship further than it’s gone before.

Well-received on the international film festival circuit, Bror has also been used as an educational film at schools in Germany. The full short film is now available on Dekkoo.

The relationship between a biographer and his subject spirals into abuse and dependence in the tense Australian drama Acute Misfortune

Erik Jensen was an ambitious nineteen-year-old journalist at The Sydney Morning Herald when Archibald Prize-Winning painter, Adam Cullen, with a career retrospective at the Art Gallery of NSW, invited him to write his biography. The new film Acute Misfortune follows of the four-and-a-half years leading to Cullen’s death at the age of forty-six. It is the story of their increasingly claustrophobic relationship.

Based on the award-winning biography Cullen, the Jensen did eventually publish, co-writer-director Thomas M. Wright’s film is about biographer and subject, an iconic artist and lauded author, theft and the commerce of theft, the instability of lies and of coming through an abusive relationship to find meaning in its wake.

These true events, told using almost entirely real dialogue are brought to life by award-winning actors Daniel Henshall (The Snowtown Murders, The Babadook), and Toby Wallace (Romper Stomper, The Turning). Acute Misfortune marks the feature-length debut of Wright, an actor known for Sweet Country and Top of the Lake.

Meticulously researched, the film that was named one of the best films of the year in The Monthly Awards in Australia and by Screen Daily. It also received The Age Critics Prize at Melbourne International Film Festival.

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

Short Film Spotlight: Mass

Trey (played by writer-director Linus Ignatius) finds that his body dysmorphia is compounded by the fact that he is HIV-positive, and pretty freshly diagnosed. A perfect storm of “I am not enough” feelings soon hits him, leading to a particularly dark stretch. 

At night, he invites a macho, joyless man over to take advantage of him in the bedroom, and we see how Trey, in his self-loathing, brings people into his life who abuse him and reinforce his role as the victim. 

It also seems that everybody around him is bigger and manlier than he is. So he chokes down his protein shakes, does his best to keep up with the muscle builders at the gym, and chows down burgers. And soon there seems to be a happy ending in sight. As the next day dawns, and Trey continues on his bulking-up progress, he finds himself one pound heavier – and stronger – than the day before.

A thought-provoking short film about feeling small and getting BIG, Mass announces writer-director-star Linus Ignatius as a talent to watch.

Watch the trailer for Mass below. The full 10-minute short film is available now on Dekkoo.

Don’t Miss the Brand-New Dekkoo-Original Series So Far, So Close – All Episodes Available Now!

Three writers, two directors and twenty-one actors come together for an intersecting anthology series about love, lust, loss and making a connection even in the most troubled of times.

Created by Michael Varrati and Brandon Kirby, the same team behind the hit rom-com series I’m Fine, the new Dekkoo-Original Series So Far, So Close takes the restrictions of our shelter-at-home lifestyles and turns them into an advantage, focusing on a broad collection of engaging characters and following them through one of the most delightful games of telephone we’ve ever seen.

All eight episodes of So Far, So Close dropped on Friday, February 5th and are now available binge on Dekkoo! Check out our exclusive trailer for the series, along with some select images, below!