Category: Performing Arts

‘Phantom Project’ is a playful and quirky supernatural rom-com from Chile

Phantom Project stars Juan Cano as Pablo, a young actor who dreams of landing a role in a film.

In order to pay the bills, he works as a simulated patient in medical schools and strange alternative therapy sessions. It’s not just his career that has hit a snag. His romantic and social lives are also in trouble.

He’s still in love with his successful ex-boyfriend and his roommate has disappeared without paying rent, leaving behind several problems… including a ghost who is now haunting his living space.

With nowhere to go but up, Pablo becomes more determined than ever to fix his situation and finally turn his dreams into a reality.

From writer-director Roberto Doveris, Phantom Project is a delightfully off-beat supernatural gay comedy with humor and heart to spare.

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

Now Available: Sublime

How do you avoid losing something precious when it’s the very thing tearing you up inside?

Whether he’s writing music with his garage band buddies, having dinner with his family or sneaking off into the woods with his girlfriend, 16-year-old Manu (Martín Miller) is never quite present. He’s consumed by a secret that’s been eating him up inside.

In his dreams, Manu and his best friend Felipe (Teo Inama Chiabrando) lie in bed together, staring longingly into one another’s eyes while inching closer and closer together. Though they never kiss, the desire is clear. That desire simmers beneath the surface of writer-director Mariano Biasin’s moving new coming-of-age drama Sublime.

Featuring beautiful cinematography, an exceptional soundtrack and palpable chemistry between lead actors Miller and Inama Chiabrando, this award-winning new film follows one teen whose affection for his best friend can only stay suppressed for so long.

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

A filmmaker becomes the target of a serial killer in the colorful new horror-comedy CUT!

Writer-director Marc Ferrer also stars in his new film CUT! as Marcos, a struggling low-budget filmmaker who is desperate to finish his latest project – a queer take on Italian Giallo thrillers of the 1970s.

When the cast and crew of his movie end up the victims of a deranged serial killer, Marcos quickly becomes both a prime suspect for the investigators and the killer’s next potential target. He soon finds he must keep working if he wants to survive.

Paying homage to sleazy Euro-thrillers and the early films of Pedro Almodóvar, this vibrant new horror-comedy melds together mystery, camp, pastiche and heavy doses of homoeroticism.

CUT! is a rollicking meta slasher which proudly showcases the weird, wild and wonderful world of queer artists in Spain and Catalonia.

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

Actor Sam Harris gets personal in a filmed performance of his stage show HAM: A Musical Memoir

Based on the bestselling collection of essays and the original stage show directed by “Pose” star Billy Porter, HAM: A Musical Memoir tells the comic and poignant true story of longtime recording artist and actor Sam Harris.

This new filmed version captures Sam’s critically acclaimed, multiple-award winning live stage show in which Harris plays himself at various ages, as well as ten other characters, recounting personal stories of friendship, love, celebrity, getting sober and growing up gay in the Bible Belt during the 1960s and ‘70s.

As he reached higher and higher levels of success – Broadway, television, albums, awards, a gig at Carnegie Hall – Sam realized that, for him, less is less… and more is never enough.

After the highs and lows of a life in show business, Sam is finally forced to confront the merciless question: what is enough?

Watch a short trailer for HAM: A Musical Memoir below. The full live performance is now available on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: The Long Ride

Not everything is as it seems in The Long Ride.

An 8-minute comedy-drama from writer Samy Souissi and director Sarah Passos, the film stars Matthew Morrison as Zack, an up-and-coming British actor with lots of talent, but very little professional luck.

After a long and uncomfortable day, all Zack wants to do is sit down and relax on his long train ride home. Determined to get a seat, he decides to “make a scene” with the help of his long-suffering boyfriend Aidan, played by Joseph Prestwich. His efforts, however, prove a little too convincing and end up getting him in much more trouble than he anticipated.

The Long Ride is a clever, well-acted and deliberately deceptive short film about a fake break-up turned tragically real. The full short film is available now on Dekkoo.

Now Available: The Extinction of Fireflies

Set in a coastal New England town over Labor Day Weekend, the new comedy-drama The Extinction of Fireflies follows a middle-aged playwright who invites some friends to read his latest dramatic effort.

Those friends are Charlotte, a legendary TV diva, and Jay, an actor who rarely finds himself employed. The play, titled “The Extinction of Fireflies” is a mythological comedy based on the epic romance of Roman Emperor Hadrian and his teenage lover Antinous. When Jay brings along his new, much younger lover Callisto, life begins to imitate art and the critical feedback of the piece becomes personal and surprisingly spectacular.

Based on his own stage play, this new comedy from writer-director James Andrew Walsh stars multi-award winner Michael Urie, of “Ugly Betty” fame, Olivier Award winner Tracie Bennett, “Bob’s Burgers” and “Search Party” regular Drew Droege and “Chicaco Fire” and “Broad City” star Kario Marcel.

Shot entirely on location in Westerly, Rhode Island during the 2020 global pandemic, the film is dedicated to all the fireflies extinguished by both AIDS and the coronavirus.

Watch the trailer for The Extinction of Fireflies below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

Now Available: Enfant Terrible

When 22-year-old Rainer Werner Fassbinder stormed onto the stage of a small, progressive theatre in 1967 Munich and seized the production, nobody suspected that this brazen young rebel would go on to become one of the most important post-war German filmmakers. But that’s exactly what happened.

His immense catalog of work is still unparalleled. Fassbinder, who lived hard and died at the young age of 37, crammed no fewer than 40 feature films, two dozen plays and an epic 16-hour miniseries into his brief, but intense lifetime. Many of his films were breakout hits at the most renowned film festivals in the world and continue to both inspire and polarize audiences, critics and filmmakers today.

His open bisexuality, radical views and self-exploitation, as well as his longing for love, made him one of the most fascinating directors of all time.

Co-writer/director Oskar Roehler and lead actor Oliver Masucci bring the unabashedly queer iconoclast to life in Enfant Terrible – and it’s not always pretty. The film takes an unflinching look at some of Fassbinder’s wildest and most notorious moments, unafraid to examine them through a more contemporary lens, but never losing sight of what made him such a mad cinematic genius in the first place –  albeit a highly controversial one.

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

Three teens enter a complicated love triangle in the queer high school classic Dare

Originally released in 2009, Dare is a romantic teen drama from director Adam Salky, based on his own acclaimed 2005 short film of the same name. Featuring an all-star cast, the film tells a captivating story about a group of high school seniors at the crossroads of their adult lives.

When a pompous young actor tells so-called “good girl” Alexa (Emmy Rossum) that she hasn’t really lived, she embarks on a bold journey that takes her into the arms of a mysterious bad boy Johnny (Zach Gilford). Envious, her shy best friend Ben (Ashley Springer) also dares to pursue Johnny, complicating Alexa’s romance and pushing the sexual and romantic boundaries among the three friends.

In addition to Emmy Rossum, Zach Gilford and Ashley Springer as the three leads, the cast of Dare also includes Ana Gasteyer, Sandra Bernhard, Alan Cumming and a young, pre-stardom Rooney Mara just before her A-list breakthrough in films like The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

A critical hit at the time of its release, Newsday called Dare “one of the smartest and most honest teen movies in years.” The New York Times said the film is “at once more provocative and more contemplative than most of its big-screen counterparts.”

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

A neurotic filmmaker navigates love in the charming British rom-com Benjamin

Benjamin, written and directed by British comedian Simon Amstell, is a charmingly offbeat romantic comedy about a mess-of-a-filmmaker juggling the anxieties and excitement of his upcoming film premiere with the fear and awkwardness of a burgeoning romance.

Gangly and neurotic, and always ready with a self-defensive quip, indie film director Benjamin (Colin Morgan of The Happy Prince and Belfast) nervously prepares for the premiere of his sophomore feature when he meets and falls hard for Noah (Departure and Little Joe star Phénix Brossard), a confident and charming young French musician.

Will Benjamin’s insecurities and anxieties get in the way of success and happiness? Will his film be a critics-savaging disaster and he, a one-hit wonder? Amstell peppers this entertaining tale with hilariously deadpan one-liners and a scene-stealing cast of supporting characters including Joel Fry (Cruella, Game of Thrones, Our Flag Means Death) as Stephen, Benjamin’s manic-depressive stand-up comedian best friend; Jessica Raine as Billie, his unbearable publicist, Harry (Jack Rowan), his egocentric, bi lead actor; and Anna Chancellor (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pride and Prejudice) as his patient producer.

A laugh-out-loud look at one man’s land mined road to success and love, Benjamin is a true must-see.

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

Now Available: Marionette Land

Robert Brock, the artistic director and founder of the Lancaster Marionette Theatre in Pennsylvania, lives above the space with his mother, Mary Lou.

Together the pair have been keeping this Lancaster treasure going for thirty years with unique takes on classic marionette shows for families (including Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz and Aladdin) and cabaret-style grown-up shows which feature Brock performing as Liza Minnelli, Bette Midler and other divas.

Each puppet has not only been handcrafted by Brock himself, but also acts as a window into the personality that has passionately driven this fading form of entertainment.

Offbeat and endlessly endearing, the new documentary Marionette Land follows Brock and his mother as they go about their daily business… until COVID-19 threatens to drop the curtains for good. As the thirty year anniversary approaches and attendance dwindles, Robert begins to reflect upon his life dedicated to entertaining others while sacrificing his own personal needs. Though the stage gave him confidence to become and accept his true self, it also left him without a partner to share the spotlight with.

From director Alexander Monelli (the filmmaker behind the acclaimed doc At the Drive-In), Marionette Land intimately captures a deeply gifted artist as a personal and professional crossroad.

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