From writer-director Kevin James Thornton, the filmmaker behind the 2019 feature How to Get from Here to There, comes Stranger Hearts, a thoughtful, sexy and deeply heartfelt new Dekkoo Original Series following three queer characters of wildly different backgrounds.
First, there is Andre (newcomer Qua Robertson Harper), a shy young African-American man struggling with his sexual identity. When his mother finds a stack of gay porn hiding in his closet, the truth starts inching ever closer to the surface. Then there is Luka (Amo), a gender non-conforming photographer who has fallen on hard financial times. In need of a steady job, Luka decides to dip their toe into the potentially risky world of online escorting. Lastly, there is Billy (Matt Moran), a smooth-taking media mogul who finds his life turned upside down when he’s diagnosed with an incurable heart disease. While waiting for a transplant, he begins reevaluating his life and learning to appreciate the people closest to him.
Though they don’t know it, all three of these disparate characters are soon to be connected – through fate, work, family, love… and donuts.
Mark (writer-director Mark Blane), the protagonist and anti-hero of the new dark comedy Cubby, is a misanthropic 26-year-old gay man who has been living in his mother’s garage in Indiana. An illustrator who works almost exclusively on sexually explicit-and BDSM-themed-artwork, Mark is stuck in a state of arrested development. He’s pretty much the last person you would expect to find a job working with children… but that’s exactly what happens. When he lies about getting a job opportunity in New York City, he ends up taking a rel job babysitting for 6-year-old Milo (Joseph Seuffert), a new best friend who fully accepts Mark, but does little to help him meet the challenges of everyday life.
Falling behind on rent, and running out of anti-anxiety pills, Mark finally discovers the inspiration he needs, in the form of an imaginary-friend-superhero named Leather-Man (Christian Patrick), who appears to him with the help of a psychedelic cupcake. As a sexy metaphor for discipline and control, Leather-Man helps Mark onto the path for success, but not before Mark’s babysitting adventures turn from empowering, to risky and ultimately transformative.
Featuring a sensational supporting performance from Patricia Richardson (Home Improvement), Cubbyis a demented, yet completely charming comedy that marks the arrival of an original new cinematic voice in writer-director-star Mark Blane.
Watch the trailer for Cubby below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.
Kyle Reaume is an award winning Toronto-based director, writer, actor and editor. Graduating from Toronto Film School in 2015, his student short film The Lazarus Files took home Best Picture, Best Producer, Best Editor and Best Production Design awards. His collective shorts have screened in over sixty film festivals worldwide.
In 2016, Kyle won the inaugural Inside Out BravoFact Pitch Competition, receiving a $50,000 grant to produce his short, What About Shelley, which screened at festivals worldwide, including Canada, the US, Germany, China, and Iceland. His short film Vertical Lines won Best Men’s Short at 2018 Wicked Queer Boston, and Best Screenplay at the 2019 Future of Film Showcase. Currently, he is developing his first feature film.
Kyle’s latest short film, Battle Cry, is now available on Dekkoo. At the oldest-running queer theatre in the world, Toronto’s most cerebral drag queen and “tragicomedienne” Pearle Harbour prepares to take the stage for her new show “Battle Cry: Songs Of Warfare & Gaiety”.
Watch a short clip from Battle Cry below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.
Top 3 is an animated romantic comedy about love, life, lists and what happens after falling helplessly in love.
In this funny, bittersweet animated romantic comedy from Sweden, perpetual list-maker Anton falls in love with David, but things start to go awry when Anton realizes that his dreams in life might be in direct opposition to his new partner’s.
A Dekkoo Original (the first animated film of its kind), Top 3 is a multiple-award-winning co-production of Swedish Television, with support from the Swedish Film Institute.
Watch the trailer for Top 3 below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.
The short comedy Dirty Talk follows a gay, conservative English teacher named Nathan (played by writer-director Jeff Sumner) who is having dinner with his not-so-conservative friend Zach (played by the hilarious Jason Boegh).
At dinner, Zach accuses Nathan of being prudish when it comes to sex. So Nathan tells Zach about a wild sexual encounter with a hot Latin man who loves to talk dirty pushing Nathan way out of his comfort zone. As Nathan speaks, we get to see what happened on that fateful night that made him feel so awkward.
Based on a few actual events, this delightfully “dirty” twelve-minute short film offers up lots of laughs, some titillating scenes and a few surprises along the way.
It’s summertime in the Landes. Looking to cure their boredom, fifteen-year-old footballers Loris and Thomas (Simon Boutin and Matthieu Lucci) by engaging in what they assume will be some largely harmless trouble-making.
When they end up stealing the mobile phone of their coach (Samuel Theis), they discover clandestine photos of young naked footballers in the shower. Loris seems to be the main subject of this voyeurism. Cut to the quick, the teenager goes to his trainer’s place to seek revenge… and things get way, way out of hand.
An edgy twenty-one-minute thriller from French writer-director Laurent Lunetta (who worked as the art director on the acclaimed Stranger by the Lake), Play It Like a Man is a riveting short work that isn’t afraid to tackle taboo subjects.
The Perfect Wedding tells the story of Paul Fowler (Eric Aragon) and Gavin Greene (Jason T. Gaffney), two young gay men who meet and fall in love over the Christmas holidays.
Charismatic, handsome Paul is a recovering alcoholic, eighteen months sober, but still picking up the pieces of the destruction he’d wrought while drinking. He lives at home with his parents, Richard (James Rebhorn) and Meryl (Kristine Sutherland), and with their support and the help of his AA sponsor Zach (Sal Rendino), Paul is learning how to live one day at a time.
But Christmas is approaching, and Paul’s adopted sister Alana (Apolonia Davalos) is coming home for the holidays. This won’t be just a regular family celebration — she’s recently engaged and the weekend will be spent planning her June wedding. She’s bringing her best friends Roy (Roger K. Stewart) and Vicki (Annie Kerins) home with her, to help with the task.
Problem is, Roy is Paul’s ex-boyfriend, and their relationship was a casualty to Paul’s drinking. In fact, the two young men haven’t seen each other since their very messy breakup. Nervous about seeing his ex again, Roy talks his good friend Gavin into joining him for the weekend, and pretending to be his new boyfriend.
When Paul and Gavin meet, sparks of attraction fly — but Gavin thinks Roy’s still hung up on Paul. And of course, the last thing Paul wants to do is hurt his ex all over again.
Meanwhile, like all families, the Fowlers must deal with bad news as well as good, and we discover that patriarch Richard has been recently diagnosed with early on-set Alzheimer’s. He is essentially symptom-free, but Meryl is terrified of what the future holds and throws herself into planning a lavish wedding for their daughter, Alana. Even though Meryl knows it’s foolish, she wants to create a wedding so big and so beautiful that no one — not even Richard — will ever forget it.
When Paul realizes that his sister’s wedding plans are getting steamrolled by their mom, he gets involved and convinces Alana’s fiancé Kirk (Brendan Griffin) to re-propose to her, asking her to marry him that very day, in a small ceremony at sunset near the water, with only close friends and family attending, just as Alana has always imagined. And with Paul’s help, Richard also confronts Meryl and convinces her to join him in the present instead of living burdened with the uncertainties of the future.
The proposal, the intimate wedding, and Paul and Gavin’s ultimate connection are touching scenes in a warm and funny story about a very real, modern American family.
In this unusual new film, controversial cult film director and legendary queer activist Rosa von Praunheim focuses his lens on a recent, true criminal case involving a German serial killer.
Lars (Bozidar Kocevski), a male nurse from Saarbrucken, moves with his lover Roland (Heiner Bomhard), a kind young musician with a lilting voice, to Berlin. The two lovers soon begin renovating an apartment with the intention of finally living together. For Roland, their happiness seems almost complete. What he doesn’t know, however, is that while secretly checking out Berlin’s nightlife, Lars is experimenting with a deadly poison – an obsession that will lead to a horrific outcome for the couple.
Using a psychiatric tribunal as a framing device, von Praunheim expertly balances Lars’ twisted fantasies with Roland’s dreams of a blissful romance.
Watch the trailer for Darkroom below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.
Sordid Lives creator Del Shores new filmed one-man show proves once again that he is not a writer, he’s a self-proclaimed thief. In Six Characters In Search Of A Play, Shores is inspired by Pirandello’s classic play to bring you six characters inspired by his real-life encounters that haven’t quite made it into one of Shores’ plays, films or TV shows.
In 90 minutes, he presents the audience with the truth behind how he collected these eccentrics, then he portrays them in classic Shores’ monologue style. The audience will walk away knowing “Yvonne”, the vegetarian-hating Texas waitress; “Sarah”, an elderly actress who is determined to drink and smoke herself to death if Trump is elected; “Jimmy Ray”, the evolving Georgia redneck, “Loraine”; the once brilliant drama teacher who has lost her damn mind and is now obsessed with porn; “Aunt Bobbie Sue”, the blue-collar Republican who does not care for “Mexkins” or Obama; and “Marsha”, the monkey-hating lesbian with CPOD.
Del Shores has written, directed and produced successfully across studio and independent film, network and cable television and regional and national touring theatre. His career took off with the play Daddy’s Dyin’ (Who’s Got The Will?) in 1987, which ran two years, winning many Los Angeles theatre awards, including LA Weekly’s Best Production and Best Writing. The play has subsequently been produced in over 2,500 theatres worldwide. A movie version was released in 1990 starring Beau Bridges, Tess Harper, Judge Reinhold, Keith Carradine and Beverly D’Angelo.
Sordid Lives, his fourth play, opened in Los Angeles in 1996 and ran 13 sold-out months. The play went on to win 14 Drama-Logue Theatre Awards, including three for Shores for wring, directing and producing. There have since been over 300 additional stage productions of the play. In 1999, Shores wrote and directed the film version of Sordid Lives starring Beau Bridges, Delta Burke, Olivia Newton-John, Bonnie Bedelia, Leslie Jordan and Beth Grant along with most of the cast from the play. Opening in only eight theaters across the country, the little film that could took in nearly two million dollars in its limited release and became a cult phenomenon.
Writer-director Andrew Ahn’s remarkably assured feature-length debut is a portrait of forbidden sexual awakening set in the nocturnal world of spas and karaoke bars in Los Angeles’ Koreatown.
David Cho (Joe Seo, who won the Special Jury Award at Sundance for his breakthrough performance), a timid 18-year-old living with his financially-struggling immigrant parents, chances upon a secret spot for cruising when he takes a part-time job at an allmale spa, and begins to realize hidden inner desires that threaten his life as a dutiful son and student.
Effervescent and atmospheric, this one-of-a-kind coming-of-age story makes the steamy spa a liminal place between dream and reality, and desire and disillusionment.
“Spa Night is an intensely personal film,” said Ahn. “I knew very early in the screenwriting process that I had to draw from my own life experiences in order to find the honesty I wanted to show on screen. As the son of Korean-American immigrants, I have felt the conflict between my parents’ expectations and my own personal desires. In Spa Night, I wanted to explore what it means to be a part of a Korean-American family. As Spa Night progressed into production, the film became even more personal for me. We shot on location in Koreatown, Los Angeles — at restaurants I have eaten at, spas I have visited, and streets I have walked down. As I directed scenes, I saw my family in this fictional family I had created.”
“My main character David speaks in a mix of Korean and English to his parents, the same mix I use when I speak to my parents. With Spa Night, I want to open up American independent cinema to include stories about immigrant communities told in languages other than English. It is important that our cinema culture reflect the diversity of the American experience. By telling this story, I am attempting to validate the immigrant experience and acknowledge my parents’ sacrifice to leave their home country and start a new life in America. Spa Night is my way of fulfilling my parents’ hopes and dreams.”
Watch the trailer for Spa Night below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.
Discover great gay stories. 