Category: New Release

Now Available: Why Not You

Mario (Thomas Prenn) is a sensitive and somewhat self-destructive young dancer. Always struggling to fit in and meet like-minded people, he finds difficulty in the day-to-day life of his small Italian village. At a local festival, he bumps into Lenz (Noah Saavedra), a strikingly handsome former childhood friend who left town long ago.

Instantly, old memories and suppressed feelings begin rising to the surface. Mario quickly becomes fixated on Lenz, who is now living out his dreams as an actor in Rome. Inspired, Mario decides to follow his friend to the Italian capital. When they meet in a gay bar, it becomes painfully clear that Lenz does not reciprocate his feelings.

The night takes a far more tragic turn when armed men rush in and Lenz falls victim to their attack. Escaping unharmed, Mario’s life will be forever altered by the incident and the loss that follows.

The debut feature of writer-director Evi Romen, Why Not You is a challenging character study, following a disoriented young man who senses that he must find a place for himself in the world.

Watch the trailer for Why Not You below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

New This Week – 3/26/21

While shooting a film in a small town, a famous actor puts his personal life and career in jeopardy by starting an intense affair with another man. ‘I Am Syd Stone’ is available now on Dekkoo!

This screwball comedy follows a young couple who discover a secret room filled with cash while house-sitting for celebrity friends who die mysteriously while overseas. Stream ‘Such Good People’ now on Dekkoo!

France meets her son’s girlfriend for the first time. She loses control. ‘Calamity’ is available now on Dekkoo!

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Coming next week: A film about the lengths people go to find love, friendship, and a place to call home.

Short Film Spotlight: Verona

Inspired by William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Verona is the story of two young lovers separated by their rival fraternities.

Set in a small college town wherein young men are groomed for corporate success in All-American hyper competitive fashion, Verona presents the fate of star-crossed lovers in a society that condemns the very nature of their love.

Directed by Laurie Lynd (Breakfast with Scot), Verona features star actors known from DeGrassi, All My Children, The Best Years, Paradise Falls, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Queer As Folk and more. This post-modern retelling of the greatest love story ever told brings to light the homophobic/homo-erotic dual nature of fraternity life, its perks and perils.

Verona was shot as something of a calling-card, to pave the way for public, private and corporate interest in a full-length feature film version. The project is one of passion for all those involved, hoping to present the nature of love in its truest form – and it shows.

Verona is available now on Dekkoo. Watch the trailer below.

Now Available: Nevrland

In the dark, sexy, psychological coming-of-age drama Nevrland, 17-year-old Jakob (Simon Frühwirth) struggles with crippling anxiety and takes refuge in the Internet. While on a cam-to-cam chat site, he meets 26-year-old artist Kristjan (Paul Forman)… and soon nothing in his life will be quite the same.

Caught between reality and fantasy, youth and adulthood, Jakob’s blurry process of sexual awakening is a psychedelic trip of hot, strange hallucinatory sequences of desire and madness that will bring you to the edge of your seat.

With vivid imagery and atmospherically dense scenes, director Gregor Schmidinger shows the process of sexual awakening and self-discovery as an existential journey in which the borders between reality and fantasy become increasingly blurred.

Along with Simon Früwirth as Jakob in his debut acting role, the cast also includes the Austrian star stand-up comedian and actor Josef Hader as Jakob’s stoic father.

Nevrland is a well-founded depth psychological coming-of-age film about the courage it takes to be oneself and the often daunting fear blocking the way.

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

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.