Category: New This Wekk

Short Film Spotlight: Turn It Around

Set at a teen house party, the 9-minute short Turn It Around follows fifteen-year-old Bram (Valentijn Avé), a young man who is surrounded by his friends and draws the Turn It Around Captures the Heart-Racing Intensity of a Teenage Crush

What starts as an ordinary house party quickly becomes a life-changing night in Turn It Around, the tender and emotionally honest LGBTQ+ short film now streaming on Dekkoo.

At the center of the story is Bram, a shy teenage boy trying to blend into the chaos of a crowded party. While he attracts the attention of several girls throughout the evening, Bram’s heart is focused elsewhere. Across the room is Florian (Tonko Bossen), the effortlessly cool, denim-clad boy who instantly captures his attention.

As the night unfolds, the chemistry between the two boys becomes impossible to ignore. There’s just one complication: nobody at the party knows Bram is gay.

The tension slowly builds through stolen glances, awkward moments, and the overwhelming fear that comes with wanting to be seen for who you truly are. When a game of spin the bottle begins, Bram is suddenly faced with a choice that could change everything — not just for the night, but for the rest of his life.

Directed by Dutch filmmaker Niels Bourgonje and written by Paul Bontenbal, Turn It Around became an award-winning festival favorite thanks to its authentic emotional storytelling and heartfelt performances from its young cast. The film perfectly captures the nervous excitement, vulnerability, and longing of a first crush while exploring the fear and freedom that come with coming out.

Fans of emotional coming-of-age stories and romantic LGBTQ+ cinema will find a lot to love here. If you enjoy intimate queer dramas, you can also explore Dekkoo’s collection of gay romance movies and discover even more heartfelt stories on the platform’s LGBTQ+ movies collection.

Why Turn It Around Works So Well

What makes Turn It Around stand out is its simplicity. Rather than relying on melodrama, the short film focuses on small moments — eye contact across a crowded room, hesitation before speaking, and the anxiety of wondering whether your feelings might actually be returned.

The result is a deeply relatable story for anyone who remembers the intensity of a teenage crush or the fear of revealing a hidden part of themselves.

The chemistry between the leads gives the film its emotional core, helping transform an ordinary party setting into something unforgettable.

Watch Turn It Around on Dekkoo

Turn It Around is now streaming exclusively on Dekkoo, home to a growing library of award-winning queer cinema, romantic dramas, international LGBTQ+ stories, and original series.

Looking for more emotional and romantic stories? Browse Dekkoo’s collections of:

Watch the trailer for Turn It Around below and experience this touching coming-of-age short for yourself.

Season 2 of Open to It Is Now Streaming on Dekkoo

Open to It Season 2 promotional image featuring Cam and Greg embracing while exploring love, relationships and life as a throuple

Ready for more romance, chaos and complicated relationships? Season 2 of Open to It is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Created by, written by, directed by and starring Frank Arthur Smith, Open to It returns with more laughs, more chemistry and even more unexpected twists as one couple continues exploring what happens when love doesn’t always fit inside traditional boundaries.

Looking for more queer stories to stream? Explore our collection of gay movies and series here!

Love Gets More Complicated in Season 2

After opening up their relationship, Cam (Frank Arthur Smith) and Greg (Tim Wardell) quickly discover that being in a throuple isn’t always as effortless as it seemed.

Season 2 follows the pair as they navigate attraction, intimacy and difficult questions about what they really want — and whether opening their relationship solved anything at all.

Meanwhile, Princeton (Jason Caceres) is forced to take a closer look at himself and confront truths he wasn’t expecting. Elsewhere, Elsa (Kimberly Pace-Nieva) and Reggie (Elizabeth M. Boone) continue figuring out whether threesomes are better as an idea, an experience… or something in between.

Featuring Drag Favorites and New Faces

Season 2 opens with a special Drag Queen Story Hour episode and welcomes appearances from RuPaul’s Drag Race fan favorites including Manila Luzon, Laganja Estranja, Pandora Boxx and Honey Davenport.

Packed with sharp comedy, relationship drama and plenty of sexy moments, Open to It continues to explore queer love in ways that are funny, messy and relatable.

If relationship-driven stories are your thing, browse more gay romance movies and series here!

Stream Open to It on Dekkoo Today

Whether you’re single, coupled or throupled, all of Season 2 of Open to It is available to stream now on Dekkoo.

Watch Open to It now!

Watch Maxxie LaWow: Drag Super-shero on Dekkoo

An animated drag musical adventure filled with heroes, villains, lip sync battles — and fabulous transformations

Official artwork for Maxxie LaWow: Drag Super-shero, an animated LGBTQ+ musical fantasy now streaming on Dekkoo

What if becoming your true self meant becoming a superhero?

Maxxie LaWow: Drag Super-shero is a colorful animated musical fantasy that combines drag performance, comedy, action, and heart into one unforgettable adventure. Featuring the voices of Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, Laraine Newman, and fan-favorite queens from RuPaul’s Drag Race including Valentina, Rosé, Monét X Change, and Jinkx Monsoon, this vibrant animated feature celebrates self-expression with plenty of spectacle along the way.

Now streaming on Dekkoo.

Watch the Trailer

Why Watch Maxxie LaWow: Drag Super-shero

  • A one-of-a-kind animated drag superhero story
  • Featuring legendary RuPaul’s Drag Race queens
  • Musical numbers, comedy, and high-energy lip sync battles
  • LGBTQ+ and BIPOC characters at the center of the story
  • A celebration of identity, confidence, and community

What Is Maxxie LaWow: Drag Super-shero About?

Simon (Grant Hodges) spends his days working as a barista at the Pink Unicorn Café alongside his lifelong best friend Jae (Erika Ishii). But on his 21st birthday, everything changes when he discovers an unusual pink wig with extraordinary powers.

With one transformation, Simon becomes Maxxie LaWow — a dazzling drag super-shero ready to take on evil in style.

But danger is already brewing.

Entrepreneur and cosmetics mogul Dyna Bolical (Terren Wooten Clarke) has uncovered a shocking secret: drag queen tears may hold the key to eternal youth. Determined to build a beauty empire, Dyna begins abducting queens to power her latest creation.

When Maxxie becomes her next target, the stage is set for an unforgettable showdown.

If you enjoy bold, camp, and larger-than-life LGBTQ+ storytelling, explore more Dekkoo Originals & Exclusives or browse our collection of gay movies.

Can Maxxie rescue the missing queens, stop Dyna’s plans, and save the day in a spectacular aerial lip sync battle?

You’ll have to watch to find out.

Cast & Creators

Directed by: Anthony Hand
Written & Produced by: Anthony Hand

Featuring voices from:

  • Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman
  • Laraine Newman
  • Grant Hodges
  • Erika Ishii
  • Valentina
  • Rosé
  • Monét X Change
  • Jinkx Monsoon

Maxxie LaWow: Drag Super-shero marks Anthony Hand’s feature directorial debut and introduces a bold new animated world centered on drag heroes and villains.

More to Stream on Dekkoo

After watching Maxxie LaWow: Drag Super-shero, continue with:

Dekkoo Selects →

Series to Binge →

Trending on Dekkoo →

Browse All Titles →

Stream Maxxie LaWow: Drag Super-shero Today

Ready for a superhero story unlike any other?

Watch Maxxie LaWow: Drag Super-shero now on Dekkoo and discover a world where saving the day has never looked this fabulous.

Start your free trial →

Exploring Allen Ginsberg’s Howl: A Cinematic Journey

From Academy Award-winning documentarians Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, filmmakers behind celebrated queer classics like The Celluloid Closet and The Times of Harvey Milk, the 2010 docudrama Howl bends genres to depict the story behind the literary revolution that was Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.”

James Franco stars as a young Ginsberg on the precipice of making waves with his incendiary, culture-shifting poem.

The film takes us to a famous reading of “Howl” at the Six Gallery, a recreation of an unpublished interview allegedly given to Time in 1957 and the poem’s infamous obscenity trial.

We’re also witness to the beginnings of Ginsberg’s relationship with lover, Peter Orlovsky, played by “Gossip Girl” alum Aaron Tveit. Featuring an impressive supporting cast – including David Strathairn, Jon Hamm, Jeff Daniels, Treat Williams and Mary-Louise Parker – Howl offers up a fascinating and idiosyncratic portrait of an epic literary work and its iconoclastic creator.

Watch the trailer for Howl below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Exploring LGBTQ+ Life in Singapore: People Like Us Season 3

Following the lives of four gay men, People Like Us, a short-form series from creator Leon Cheo, offers up a poignant reflection and insightful look at being gay in modern-day Singapore. The characters drift into one another’s worlds – and beds – as they navigate love, lust and life in the big city.

Picking back up with our central group, Season Three finds Joel (Josh Crowe) dealing with grief, struggling with the dating scene and binge-eating his feelings. Meanwhile, Ridzwan (Ifran Kasban) distracts himself with work and sex as Isaac (Steven Lim) falls deeper into his substance addiction. Finally, post-‘honeymoon phase,’ Rai (Hemant Ashoka) and Haniff (Syaheeran Othman) are facing new and unexpected challenges as a serodiscordant couple, one being HIV+ and one HIV-.

In addition to the sexual escapades and relationships that unfold between these characters, People Like Us explores themes of acceptance, community support, the challenges of dating, substance abuse and HIV awareness in the local LGBTQ+ community.

Watch the trailer for the newest season below and catch up on all the drama of People Like Us on Dekkoo. All three seasons are available now.

Exploring Sexuality in the Digital Age: My Sweet Prince

In a smoke-filled basement, lit only by the flicker of a screen and the occasional orange glow of a spliff, a teen boy named Tommy (Yoni Roodner) sits detached from his friends, paralyzed by the fear of his own sexuality.

Afraid of the intense attraction he feels towards his male friends, he chooses to forgo physical company and instead seeks out anonymized friendships online, carefully muffling the dial-up sound of the router for midnight chat sessions with his pen pal and confidant on MSN Messenger.

Set during the early days of the internet, My Sweet Prince, a clever short written and directed by London-based filmmaker Jason Bradbury, uses segments from the filmmaker’s own teenage VHS diaries, shot during childhood summers at his home on the Isle of Wight. This footage is spliced together alongside the fictional story of Tommy, a young boy wrestling with doubt and uncertainty while finding solace in the virtual company of his online crush.

Looking back at at a very particular moment in time, My Sweet Prince subtly examines how the internet’s arrival catalyzed an unprecedented set of formative experiences for a guinea pig generation of youngsters.

Watch the trailer for My Sweet Prince below. The short film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Dark Comedy: Stimulants and Empathogens Review

An award-winning dark comedy from Poland, Stimulants and Empathogens follows Antek (Michal Murawski), a closeted gay teen from a wealthy family.

At the start of the film, Antek is harboring a hopeless crush on Kuba (Gracjan Kosyl), a fellow teen who just happens to be a drug dealer.

Looking to get closer, Antek invites Kuba to his family’s villa under the pretext of another deal. What he doesn’t know, however, is that Kuba is on a mission, ordered by his superiors in the drug trade, his father and brother. They suspect that Antek may be reselling their product at a profit.

What begins as a romantic comedy of errors soon turns into a social satire rollercoaster of clashing cultures.

Watch the trailer for Stimulants and Empathogens below. The short film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

A Big Gay Hairy Hit: Celebrating Bears in Hollywood

A hilarious and deeply touching documentary feature, A Big Gay Hairy Hit (also known as Where the Bears Are: The Documentary) tells the story of how three older gay ‘bears,’ working in Hollywood and tired of having their gay-themed ideas rejected by the mainstream, decided to self-produce their own independent web series.

Blending “The Golden Girls” with “Murder She Wrote,” the comedy series they created centers around three bear roommates who solve crimes.

Against all odds, Where the Bears Are became a sensation with gay audiences, running for seven seasons while becoming one of the most successful scripted web series of all time.

Featuring lead actors and creators Rick Copp, Joe Dietl, and Ben Zook, this retrospective documentary examines ageism, body-shaming, sex-positivity, the creative process and how friendship can deliver a finished product that is beloved all over the world.

Watch the trailer for A Big Gay Hairy Hit below. The documentary is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Front Cover: A Heartfelt LGBTQ+ Love Story

Ryan (Jake Choi) is a handsome fashion stylist living in New York City. He openly rejects his traditional Asian-American upbringing, fearing that it will prevent him from enjoying his life as an openly gay man.

Everything starts to change, however, when Ryan is given an assignment and begins working with Ning (James Chen), a famous and alluring Chinese actor.

Despite a rocky start, an unlikely romance develops between the two, leading Ryan to re-examine his roots and consider an enticing new path for his career, as well as his love life.

With Front Cover, Ray Yeung, the acclaimed director behind Cut Sleeve Boys, All Shall Be Well and Twilight’s Kiss, crafts a tender and entertaining look at clashing cultures and the ultimate triumph of romance, guaranteed to make you swoon.

Watch the trailer for Front Cover below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

‘Forgetting the Many: The Royal Pardon of Alan Turing’ looks at how far gay rights have come in the UK

After decades of attempts to reform archaic laws that criminalized male homosexual acts as “gross indecency” – and to expunge the records of many convicted men – a new bill was finally passed in British Parliament. Narrated by Ben Whishaw, Forgetting the Many: The Royal Pardon of Alan Turing tells the story of that long struggle.

A wave of post-WWII prosecutions compromised thousands of men, including the brilliant World War II computer pioneer and code-breaker Alan Turing. In 1967, a new “Sexual Offenses Act” partly decriminalized homosexual acts between consenting adults in England and Wales, but was not fully enacted until 2003, when the homophobic law was finally repealed. Full, unequivocal pardons for those convicted under the old law were still awaited.

In this riveting and informative documentary from director Rosemarie Reed, six different men tell individual stories of how Britain’s anti-gay laws impacted their lives while also examining the much-deserved Royal Pardon that was posthumously given to Alan Turing in 2013.

Watch the trailer for Forgetting the Many: The Royal Pardon of Alan Turing below. The documentary is now available on Dekkoo.