Ramin (Arash Marandi), an Iranian refugee living in Mexico, is trying to come to terms with his past, one that has left permanent scars on his body and soul. As he strolls through the port of Veracruz – a place where transient souls collide in search of a better life – the haunting memories of his long-distance lover begin to fill his heart with a profound sense of loneliness and repentance.
Ramin’s friendship with Leti (Flor Eduarda Gurrola), the young woman who runs the small hotel where he stays and teaches him Spanish, and an attraction to ex-con Guillermo (Luis Alberti) help him find himself as a gay man in a new home.
Beautifully shot and strikingly naturalistic, writer-director Bani Khoshnoudi’s touching cross-cultural drama Fireflies won the top prize in the Ibero-American Competition at the Miami Film Festival. Watch the trailer below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.
Mala Mala, the critically acclaimed documentary from directors Antonio Santini and Dan Sickles, explores the intimate moments, performances, friendships and activism of trans identifying people, drag queens and others who defy typical gender identities in Puerto Rico.
The film features Ivana, an activist; Soraya, an older sex-change pioneer; Sandy, a prostitute looking to make a change; and Samantha and Paxx, both of whom struggle with the quality of medical resources available to assist in their transition.
Hailed as “sensitive and thoughtful” by the New York Times and winner of the audience award for documentary film at the Tribeca Film Festival, Mala Mala is a deeply involving piece of work which boldly affirms that the quest to find oneself can be both difficult and beautiful.
Watch the trailer for Mala Mala below. The film is currently available to stream on Dekkoo.
“My films, no matter how extreme or pornographic, have always had an intense strain of romanticism running through them. Whether it’s the relationship between a hairdresser and a skinhead, or a hustler and a john, the attachments are emotional and romantic, even when there is a very specific and sometimes extreme and taboo fetish involved. So I’ve always played somewhat ironically with rom-com conventions.” – Bruce LaBruce
In this wry “reverse Lolita” tale, an eighteen-year-old named Lake (Pier-Gabriel Lajoie) discovers he has an unusual attraction for the elderly. Fate lands him a job at an assisted-living facility where he develops an intimate relationship with Mr. Peabody (Walter Borden).
Upon discovering that the clients are being over-medicated to make them more manageable, Lake weans Mr. Peabody off his medication and helps him escape, resulting in a road trip that deepens their bond.
Always-provocative, Bruce LaBruce – the artist behind films like No Skin Off My Ass (1991), Hustler White (1996), Skin Flick (2000), The Raspberry Reich (2004) and L.A. Zombie (2010) – has built a prolific career out of pushing buttons and subverting expectations. Gerontophilia ranks among his best. This is a delicately perverse romantic comedy that is both darkly humorous and emotionally heartfelt.
Watch the trailer for Gerontophilia below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.
In April of 2018, São Paulo played host to the second annual Brazilian Mr. Leather competition… and things got heated, to say the least.
The new film Mr. Leather offers you a front-row seat – and takes you deep behind the scenes – as five individual contestants vie for full leather dominance. The winner will be crowned by Dom Barbudo, the first official Mr. Leather of Brazil. Along with victory comes a year-long commitment to promoting the leather community throughout the country, even in the face of increasingly conservative values and political unrest.
Making his feature film debut, writer-director Daniel Nolasco follows all the action, creating gorgeous and intensely provocative compositions that celebrate the unique power of this thriving subculture.
You check out the trailer for Mr. Leather below. The film is now available to stream on Dekkoo.
Billy (Kieran Foster) is already experiencing the ugly side of people’s fear and prejudice. He resolves, for the sake of his family, to leave his home town and go somewhere where he is unknown; where he can re-invent himself. Billy decides to take a job on a large farm far away; the most prestigious in its district. He hopes it will be a fresh start. As fate would have it, he immediately encounters the very thing he has tried to leave behind: he meets Tom (Luke Thompson), the farmer’s son.
Tom is beautiful and fearless, with the arrogance of privilege and youth. Their simmering romantic tension is further under-pinned by the social repression and isolation of rural New Zealand in the 1960s. A tinder-box of deceit and malice emerges as Billy discovers that he is not the only one fighting his desires and hiding his demons.
Inspired by true events, West of Eden tells a stylish tale of forbidden love and bitter revenge. Watch the trailer below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.
Brazilian writer-director André Antônio’s unusual first feature-length film reveals him as a unique talent. The Cultpremiered at the Rio International Film Festival and was awarded at Mix Brasil. It also recently had its European Premiere at the Göteborg International Film Festival.
Set in the year 2040, the film sees the city of Recife, in Brazil, deserted and in ruins. It was abandoned by the wealthy, who migrated to space colonies. The son of one of these rich families, bored in his new address, decides to return. In Recife, he redecorates his old house and spends his time reading, walking and getting involved with various men. Gradually, however, he perceives strange signs in the streets and discovers the existence of a secret cult.
André Antônio. Born 1988 in Recife himself, worked as an editor in several Brazilian films before founding, in 2012 and along with filmmakers Chico Lacerda, Fábio Ramalho and Rodrigo Almeida, the independent cinema collective Surto & Deslumbramento. In this collective, he directed two short films, Mama and Canto de Outono. André is also a researcher at Rio de Janeiro Federal University in the topics Cinema and Artifice.
You can watch the trailer for The Cult below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.
A sexy and provocative new Dekkoo Original Series from creator Matthew Lynn, The Third follows the story of Jason Height (Sean McBride), a young man recently displaced on the West Coast. During his conquests and adventures as a twenty-nine-year-old gay man in Palm Springs, he stumbles into a triad relationship with Carl and David (Corey Page and Ryland Shelton), an attractive, gay couple who are on the outs after thirteen years of marriage.
Thinking that a third person might spice up their relationship, Carl and David agree to move forward with Jason. What starts as a fling soon turns pretty series. The trip soon learn, however, that relationship issues only become more apparent once someone steps in to fill the gaps. What ensues is a tumultuous experience as everyone tries to figure the true definition of love… and whether or not it can be maintained in a three-person relationship.
Watch the full trailer for The Third below. Don’t miss this addictive new series when it debuts on October 24th – exclusively on Dekkoo!
Written and directed by John Ira Palmer, the six-minute short film Pitbull follows Javi (Josué Jiménez), a young man from East Los Angeles who is being harassed by his deeply homophobic neighbor. As tensions escalate, he must decide whether to finally confront his tormentor or turn the other cheek.
A writer, director and producer, Palmer created the short film Elwood Takes a Lover, which screened at festivals around the world and was an official selection of The American Pavilion Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. He was named a quarter-finalist for the 2019 Academy Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting, and is also a co-writer of Samir, the Warner Bros-funded USC feature film adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo.
Palmer also produced the documentary Al Imam, which became a Vimeo Staff Pick, aired on National Geographic, and earned KCET Fine Cut’s top prize. He also co-produced The Dare Project, directed by Adam Salky and written by David Brind, which screened at Outfest and Frameline in 2018.
In 2016, Palmer was invited to the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Artist Academy for emerging filmmakers at the New York Film Festival. John’s experimental 16mm and super-8 short films have screened at venues such as REDCAT, Blum & Poe, and Pacific Film Archive. He has been selected for artist residencies at Echo Park Film Center and AICAD’s New York Studio Program, and awards including the ARRI Emerging Filmmaker Grant, the James Broughton Film Award, and a Princess Grace Foundation Film Honorarium. John earned his MFA at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and his BFA at San Francisco Art Institute.
Watch the trailer for Pitbull below. The full short film is now available on Dekkoo.
Len (Matt Levett) is a Surf Lifesaving champion, a legend in the cloistered surf club just like his father. But when the younger, faster, fitter Phil (Jack Matthews) arrives at the club, Len’s legendary status starts to crumble. Then Len sees Phil arriving in the company of another man; a man Phil gives a farewell kiss too. Phil is gay.
Over the summer season, Len starts to form unexpected, confusing feelings for Phil. It’s something Len cannot accept and after the annual awards dinner, Len explodes. He finds Phil in the Club House locker room and violently attacks him.
But to Len’s surprise, Phil remains loyal to the pack and refuses to rat on Len about the beating in the Club House locker Room. Len stays in the Club and is free to compete in the annual Surf Lifesaving completion; a competition Len has won five times but Phil wins and Len’s defeat is final.
Broken, Len refuses to die and with his best mate Meat he takes Phil on a victory bender through the seedy city in an attempt to secure an intoxicated oblivion.
Arriving back at the beach where Phil won his victory the day before, Len sets upon Phil. And in a series of humiliating acts, Len finally comes face to face with a fundamental question, can he accept the truth about his sexuality and identity or will he succumb to complete oblivion.
A shocking and powerful tale of toxic masculinity, repressed desire and violence, Drown is now available on Dekkoo. Watch the trailer below.
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.
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