New Release – Page 88 – Discover great gay stories.

Spend 4 Days in France

Writer/director Jérôme Reybaud’s remarkably accomplished feature debut 4 Days in France is a sly and sophisticated take on gay romance in the 21st century.

On a seemingly ordinary night in Paris, Pierre (Pascal Cervo) takes one last look his lover Paul’s sleeping body, then steals away into the early morning light. Where he’s headed, neither of them know. Pierre’s only guide is his Grindr app, which leads him on a series of encounters with an indelible cast of characters across the French countryside. Upon realizing that his lover is gone, Paul (Arthur Igual) sets out after him, using his own phone to track Pierre’s movements in a strange and wonderful game of Grindr cat-and-mouse.

4 Days in France earned ecstatic reviews from critics when it was released in a limited theatrical run last year. Slant Magazine called it “A kind of ode to cruising writ large,” and said “There’s something endearing, if not uncanny, about the way the film evokes universal truths about erotic wandering.”

Watch the trailer for 4 Days in France below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: What About Shelley

Shelley and Billy (Alyssa Owsiany and writer-director Kyle Reaume) are best friends, but their friendship is greatly tested when Shelley’s boyfriend, Adam (Daniel Kelly), secretly comes out to Billy… the only other gay man he knows.

A stylish, smart and funny 12-minute short film, What About Shelley was funded through the inaugural Inside Out BravoFACT Pitch Competition, a $50,000 prize awarded to director/star Kyle Reaume by the Inside Out LGBT Film Festival and BravoFACT.

What About Shelley premiered at Inside Out and went on to screen at eighteen different film festivals worldwide. You can watch the full short now at Dekkoo!

Pushing Dead finds genuine humor in a deadly serious subject

Dan (“Psych” star James Roday) has been living with HIV for the past 22 years. He’s got his $3,000-a-month pill regimen down like clockwork, but when he deposits a $100 birthday check, he suddenly finds that he’s $70 over the financial assistance limit and no longer qualifies for his regular healthcare plan. Now he has to scramble to get his life together… or risk losing it.

Co-starring heavy hitters like Danny Glover, Khandi Alexander and “Deadwood” and “Big Little Lies” star Robin Weigert, the savagely dark new comedy Pushing Dead tackles seriously weighty topics and tenderness and humor. Writer-director Tom E. Brown recognizes the inherent absurdity of our current health care predicament and exploits it for laughs while never selling short his characters or their circumstances.

Watch the trailer for Pushing Dead below and catch the full film now on Dekkoo.

Now Available: Fathers

Fathers follows Phoon and Luke, a loving gay couple in a long-term relationship who have adopted a young son named Butr. Unfortunately, due to the lack of legislation for same-sex marriages in Thailand, only Phoon is allowed to be listed as the child’s father on paper. The family is very happy, but the fathers decide not to explain the situation to their son – a decision that creates many problems when Butr is old enough to attend elementary school.

Facing bullying from other students and their parents, Phoon and Yuke find themselves having to deal with a number of very hard decisions. And if that isn’t enough, a social worker of the Children’s Rights Protection Organization gets involved, questioning the idea of Butr growing up in a family without a feminine presence, and even tracks down his actual mother, who wishes to be a part of his life now.

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

Short Film Spotlight: Midnights with Adam

After engaging in a sexual act with a stranger, J. Harper Lee (Paul Yen), a detached and newly out-of-the closet young man, arrives to a soirée planned by his best friend, Annie (Amanda Kathleen Ward). Throughout the night, as he catches up with close acquaintances and struggles to hold back his feelings for his straight friend, Danny (Ben Whalen), Harper agonizes to build a façade of belonging in a world that is not meant for him.

As midnight approaches, Harper exploits himself in a brief sexual encounter to mitigate his loneliness and disconnection only to realize that he must come to terms with his identity in order to find his place in a hetero-normative world.

Written and directed by Yudho Aditya, the 34-minute short film Midnights with Adam offers a stylish and bittersweet portrait of a young Asian-American man whose sense of self is just starting to come into focus.

Watch the trailer for Midnights with Adam below and visit us at Dekkoo to watch the full film.

Short Film Spotlight: Jackpot

Man, it was hard to get gay porn discreetly before the internet! Especially if you were still coming of age.

Writer-director Adam Baran’s acclaimed short film Jackpot takes place in 1994 – not long ago, yet so far away – and follows a closeted 14-year-old kid named Jack (Ethan Navarro), who hears about a valuable stash of gay porno magazines hidden in a dumpster across town and sets out on a quest to retrieve them before they make their way to the dump. Like any good cinematic quest, there are obstacles to be overcome. In Jack’s case, they take the form of a form of a pack of homophobic bullies who have been taunting him. Luckily, he’s got an imaginary friend on his side to help coach him through – “Jackpot” cover boy Ricky Swayze (Adam Fleming).

Clever, well-directed and surprisingly heartfelt for a film about one young man’s mission to masturbate with a visual aid to match his hidden desires, Jackpot was a massive crowd-pleaser when it made the rounds at film festivals all over the world. The film is now available to watch on Dekkoo!

New This Week – 12/29/18

With their relationship on the brink of collapse, two men decide to leave the big city behind for a glorious beach vacation – where they feel free to expose their deepest secrets and desires. Their love may not survive the trip, but at least they can end things in paradise. Sanuye Shoteka and Hermes Pittakos bare it all in this emotional drama, based on their real-life relationship. ‘He Loves Me’ is available to stream exclusively on Dekkoo!

He would do anything to be touched by his former lover once more. ‘Ecstasy’ is an exploration of the coalescence of love and violence.

When a struggling writer, HIV positive for 20+ years, accidentally deposits a $100 birthday check, he is dropped from his health plan for earning too much. In this new era of sort-of universal care, can he take on a helpless bureaucracy or come up with $3000 a month to buy meds on his own? ‘Pushing Dead’ is available now to stream on Dekkoo!

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Coming next week: ‘Love’ starts with two people, but ‘Family’ is more than just the two.

Now Available: August

Writer-director Eldar Rapaport follows up a string of acclaimed short films (Steam, Postmortem) with this sexy and thought-provoking feature-length debut. August puts creative spin on the classic love triangle story.

At the start of the film, Jonathan (Daniel Dugan) and Raul (Adrian Gonzalez) form what appears to be a happy couple in L.A. However, Jonathan retains his own apartment and has an air of the unresolved adolescence about him. Raul, an Argentine immigrant in a green card marriage, is the more grounded of the pair and holds a job as a bartender as he awaits his final work papers. Troy (“Looking” star Murray Bartlett), after spending a few years in Spain, forms the third corner of the triangle when he returns to the City of Angels. Troy is trouble: he’s the man who broke Jonathan’s heart and, we soon learn, is still in Jonathan’s blood.

Using time jumps, creative editing and a lack of black and white answers, Rapaport represents the story realistically: full of difficult decisions, broken hearts, memories that flash into our consciousness, and the knowledge that true love is out there somewhere.

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

Get ready for the gorgeous, sexy and romantic Dekkoo Exclusive He Loves Me

With beautiful cinematography and natural performances, writer-director Konstantinos Menelaou’s new film He Loves Me is a feast for the eyes and the soul. The film will be available on Dekkoo exclusively, far in advance of its release on DVD in February.

He Loves Me is an exploration of the unconventional nature of love and its ability to survive against the fear of loneliness, psychological traumas and the problems that come with life in the big city. The collapsing relationship shared by two men finds an outlet for escape on an isolated beach. Once there, they feel free to expose their deepest thoughts and release their true emotions. Their wounded relationship might not survive the vacation, but it’s certainly a glorious place to feel things out.

Lead actors Sanuye Shoteka and Hermes Pittakos are artists and performers who were a real-life couple at the time that He Loves Me was shot – and the script for the film was greatly influenced by their relationship.

You can watch the visually stunning trailer for He Loves Me below and tune in to Dekkoo for the feature film. It will be available soon.

The adorable Shared Rooms will get you into the holiday spirit

A sexy, feel-good romantic comedy, Shared Rooms explores the meaning of home and family through three interrelated stories of gay men finding connections during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day

Laslo and Cal (Christopher Grant Pearson and Alec Manley Wilson), a married couple, take in a teenage relative who was kicked out of his home after his parents discovered he was gay; Sid and Gray (Justin Xavier Smith and Alexander Neil Miller), two men looking for a quick hookup, end up finding a much stronger connection; and Julian and Dylan (Daniel Lipshutz and Robert Werner), a pair of roommates, are forced to share the same bed for the week – much to the delight (and horror) of the one harboring a secret crush on the other.

Directed by Rob Williams (3-Day Weekend, Make the Yuletide Gay), Shared Rooms brings together these three interrelated tales of gay men seeking family, love and sex during the holiday season. You can check out the trailer below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.