Category: Performing Arts

A star-studded new documentary explores the life of legendary fashion icon Antonio Lopez

The riveting documentary Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco doubles as a time capsule of Paris and New York City between 1969 and 1973 – as viewed through the eyes of Antonio Lopez, the dominant fashion illustrator of the time.

A native of Puerto Rico who was raised in The Bronx, Antonio was a seductive arbiter of style and glamour. Beginning in the 1960s, he brought elements of the urban street to a postwar fashion world desperate for change and diversity.

Counted among Antonio’s discoveries – and muses of the period – were iconic beauties such as Grace Jones, Jessica Lange and Jerry Hall, as well as Warhol Superstars Donna Jordan, Jane Forth and Patti D’Arbanville.

Antonio’s inner circle was also comprised of his romantic and creative partner, Juan Ramos, makeup artist Corey Tippin, photographer Bill Cunningham, and rival designers Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint-Laurent.

All these characters and more come together in this acclaimed film from director James Crump, creating a vivid portrait of Lopez and the revolutionary fashion world he helped create.

Watch the trailer for Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco below. The documentary is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Give

The profoundly emotional 16-minute short film Give offers up a multi-layered account of the passionate romance that develops between Adam (Brian Mittelstadt), a contemporary composer-pianist, and Patrick (Joel DeCandio), a classical singer.

The pair were brought together by their respective gifts for music. Adam finds comfort with each stroke of the piano while Patrick’s singing voice commands attention from everyone within earshot.

When they play together, their connection is palpable, filling each day with both ordinary and extraordinary moments. Once their love crescendos, however, Adam is forced to process his feelings of loss and betrayal the only way he knows how.

Writer, director and composer Kenya Gillespie, who created Give as a thesis project for the Film and Media Production MFA program The University of Texas in Austin, uses a lyrical and contemplative score and snippets of poetic voiceover to support Adam and Patrick’s dreamlike memories. With minimal dialogue, the film uses music as a heartbeat.

Watch the trailer for Give below. The short film is now streaming on Dekkoo. Director Kenya Gillespie’s 2019 short, Jeremiah, is also available now.

A legendary entertainer and pioneer gets her due in the documentary ‘Miwa: A Japanese Icon’

Male actor Akihiro Miwa came to prominence in Japan back in 1968 while playing the glamorous heroine of the film Black Lizard.

A legendary entertainer and a pioneer of gay activism, Miwa popularized androgyny as a fashion statement, fusing the masculine and the feminine into a new generation of aesthetics. This evolved into performing as a woman and living off-stage as a man.

With glitter, wit, evening gowns and enchanting storytelling, Miwa: A Japanese Icon, the celebrated new documentary from director Pascal-Alex Vincent, looks back over a 50-year career and a fascinating life in Japanese music, film and television.

Having sold millions of records, Miwa continues to fight for gay rights, among other issues. Miwa: A Japanese Icon reveals the life story of this wonderful performer and unapologetic social critic.

Watch the trailer for Miwa: A Japanese Icon below. The documentary is now streaming on Dekkoo.

A filmmaker shares the final years of his elderly gay uncle in the moving documentary ‘Much Ado About Dying’

When filmmaker Simon Chambers receives a call from his elderly gay uncle – who states, gravely, that he thinks he may be dying – he takes it as a summons.

As it turns out, eccentric Uncle David, a retired, Shakespeare-obsessed actor living alone in a cluttered, mouse-infested house in London, is being dramatic… sort of.

For the next five years, Chambers both cares for and documents him, through all of his performative exuberance, anarchic charisma and mood swings, as various people, including a sexy young hustler, possibly try to take advantage of the precarious situation.

As their lives become encumbered by hospital visits, a house fire and Britain’s inadequate eldercare system, the young filmmaker – also single and queer – reflects with aching honesty on what may await him in the years to come.

A must-see documentary by turns both joyously funny and achingly sad, Much Ado About Dying is a thought-provoking study of what it means to live – and die – with dignity.

Watch the trailer for Much Ado About Dying below. The documentary is now streaming on Dekkoo.

D’Arcy Drollinger’s ‘Shit & Champagne’ delivers high-kicking, ass-whooping comedy!

When the drug-lords of the underworld kill your fiancé and your sister – and the cops stand idly by and do nothing – there’s only one thing left to do… dance!

Writer-director D’Arcy Drollinger’s tribute to female empowerment and the low-budget exploitation films of the 1970’s, Shit & Champagne delivers high-kicking, ass-whooping comedy.

After her fiancé, Rod (Mario Diaz), and her half-sister, world renowned calf model Brandy (Steven LeMay), are both brutally murdered, Champagne Horowitz Jones Dickerson White (Drollinger), a divorcée and exotic dancer from the wrong side of the tracks, uses all the right moves to single-handedly take on ‘Mal-Wart,’ the largest sex, drug and back-to-school clothing ring in the country.

But when her best friend becomes addicted to booty bumps and is forced to work as a Mal-Wart brand discount prostitute, Champagne has no other choice than to go undercover and infiltrate the corrupt organization.

Using an arsenal of disguises, a plethora of kung-fu moves and a cornucopia of one-liners, Champagne dances her way down the fast and furious road to revenge.

Adapted from Drollinger’s wildly successful stage show, Shit & Champagne is fiendishly fun, offering up wall-to-wall slapstick and camp thanks to the unwavering comic timing of triple threat writer, director and lead actress, as well as an impressive supporting cast of all-star drag talent.

Watch the trailer for Shit & Champagne below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

‘To Decadence with Love, Thanks for Everything’ takes viewers on an intimate trip through Southern Decadence

The action-packed documentary To Decadence with Love, Thanks for Everything follows the lives of drag queen extraordinaires Laveau Contraire and Franky Canga as they prepare for Southern Decadence, a weekend of queer celebration in New Orleans.

During this behind-the-scenes journey, we meet a rich community of Southern artists who proudly challenge social norms and the boundaries of self-expression.

Showcasing the diversity of New Orleans while teaching a poignant lesson about knowing your worth, this new film from director Stuart Sox provides a personal perspective from the performers as well as the producers, as Laveau strives to create more opportunities for BIPOC performance artists.

From drag queens to burlesque performers and everything in between, To Decadence with Love, Thanks for Everything is a lively portrait of a nearly 50-year tradition and the diversity community that pulls it together year after year.

Watch the trailer for To Decadence with Love, Thanks for Everything below. The documentary is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Théodore Pellerin and Félix Maritaud star in the irresistible romantic drag drama ‘Solo’

Théodore Pellerin stars in Solo as Simon, a rising star in Montreal’s drag scene who vibrates with the passion of his adopted artistic community.

Performing lively disco pop numbers weekly at his local club, he’s friendly with his fellow drag queens and supported by his sister, who delights in designing increasingly elaborate and beautiful costumes for his act.

When he meets Oliver, an alluring new recruit played by French BPM and Sauvage/Wild heartthrob Félix Maritaud, their irresistible chemistry sparks an electric romance and a fulfilling creative collaboration. Their dynamic is mesmerizing and tender until Oliver’s dominant instincts and destructive behavior jeopardize Simon’s space in the spotlight.

Simon has plenty of experience with tempestuous personalities – his mother, a bona fide opera diva, is back in his life after years on the road – but can he get out from under the shadow of their influence?

Beautifully charting the highs and lows of falling in love and finding yourself in art, writer-director Sophie Dupuis’s Solo is a passionate feat of character-driven storytelling and visual extravagance, celebrating the drag world in all its splendor and heartache.

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

A young actor is put in an uncomfortable position in the short film ‘Go Crazy with Crazy’

Struggling actors have to jump through all kinds of hoops in search of their big breaks. Too often, however, as the #MeToo movement proved, they’re asked to go to unreasonable lengths.

Based on a wild true story, director Ayana Barber’s 9-minute short Go Crazy with Crazy follows a young gay actor who is put in a deeply uncomfortable position.

Justin Garascia, who also wrote the screenplay, stars as the actor in question. After meeting and falling into bed with a promising young director named Joey (Jimmy Brooks), he’s closer than ever to landing the lead role of a meth-addicted gay porn star in a potentially groundbreaking indie film.

But when he’s asked to partake in a very unusual audition process, the young man takes to Google and discovers something fishy about the director. Not willing to compromise his integrity or his safety, he attends the audition ready for a fight – aiming to finally set the record straight and send an unforgettable message about the consequences of catfishing.

Watch a quick teaser trailer for Go Crazy with Crazy below. The short film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

The rock n’ roll romance ‘Throuple,’ a Dekkoo-original film, is coming soon to theaters!

After winning over audiences at film festivals all over the country, the colorful and sexy new ‘rock n’ roll love story’ Throuple is coming to theaters this March courtesy of Dekkoo Films!

Throuple follows Michael, a lonely, gay singer-songwriter played by Michael Doshier, who also wrote the film’s screenplay. Hopeless when it comes to dating and expressing himself, he has lost his way… and his voice. His social circle, consisting of his best friend Tristan (Tristan Carter-Jones), who leads a local rock band, and Abby (Jess Gabor), a successful DJ, are growing weary of his emotional needs.

One night, as Michael mans Tristan’s merch table, he catches the attention of Georgie and Connor (Stanton Plummer-Cambridge and Tommy Heleringer), a married couple looking for something – or someone – to do.

A nonchalant hookup turns into a night of vulnerability that none of them expected. With encouragement from Tristan and Abby, Michael pursues Georgie and Connor. The couple challenges him to open up about his feelings – and even write some new songs along the way. For his part, Michael ignites a flicker in their marriage – one they they feared may be long gone.

Michael’s world is soon thrown into chaos, however, when Georgie, Connor, Tristan and Abby all make life-altering decisions that leave him feeling abandoned. Ultimately, he must decide whether to finally express his feelings and go after what he wants – both in his music and his relationships – or watch them all slip away.

Directed by Greyson Horst, Throuple highlights queer folks’ ability to think outside the box and find new and exciting ways to live, love, express themselves and feel fulfilled.

Watch the official trailer for Throuple below. The film will be screening at New York City’s famed Quad Cinemas beginning March 14, and in Los Angeles beginning March 21, before receiving a wider VOD and release. It will also be available exclusively to Dekkoo subscribers later this year.

Muffy Blake Stephyns slays D.C. in the illuminating documentary ‘Queen of the Capital’

Bureaucrat by day and drag queen crusader by night, Muffy Blake Stephyns has high aspirations.

Muffy and her everyday persona, Daniel, must navigate her bureaucratic day job at the Department of Labor in Washington, DC, all while balancing her role in the Imperial Court of Washington DC, a philanthropic organization full of drag queens, drag kings and other vibrant performers.

Every year, the court elects an emperor and an empress. Drawing on experience as a former political consultant, Muffy spends a year campaigning for the title.

Documentary filmmaker Josh Davidsburg follows all of the action in the feature-length film Queen of the Capital, illuminating the thriving Washington D.C. drag scene and exploring the story of one individual on a colorful crusade for the community at large – who also finds time to be funny as hell along the way.

Watch the trailer for Queen of the Capital below. The full documentary is now streaming on Dekkoo.