Category: Pride

Now Available: BPM (Beats Per Minute)

In the early 1990s, ACT UP – in France, as well as in the United States – was on the front lines of AIDS activism, taking on sluggish government agencies and major pharmaceutical companies in bold, invasive actions.

ACT UP’s members, mostly gay, HIV-positive men, stormed offices in “Silence=Death” t-shirts, facing down complacent suits with the urgency of their own struggle for life.

With BPM (Beats Per Minute), acclaimed French director Robin Campillo (Les Revenants, Eastern Boys) takes audiences directly to the front lines, telling a deeply moving love story that doubles as a historical reenactment.

Amid rallies, protests, fierce debates and ecstatic dance parties, newcomer Nathan (Arnaud Valois) falls in love with Sean (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart), the group’s radical firebrand. Their passion sparks against the shadow of mortality as the activists fight for a breakthrough.

Winner of the coveted Queer Palm award at the Cannes Film Festival as well as six Cesar Awards, BPM is one of the most acclaimed gay films in recent memory. We can’t recommend it more highly.

Watch the trailer for BPM (Beats Per Minute) below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

The queer ’90s classic ‘Broadway Damage’ is now available on Dekkoo

Originally released in 1997, the romantic comedy-drama Broadway Damage plays like a valentine to ‘90s New York indie cinema when viewed through today’s lens.

Mara Hobel, Michael Lucas and Aaron Williams star as Cynthia, Marc and Robert, a trio of recent NYU grads who score a great apartment together in Greenwich Village. Marc is a struggling actor, Cynthia is desperately trying to break into the magazine publishing world and Robert, an actor/songwriter, is secretly harboring feelings for Marc – who is, sadly, oblivious.

Burning with youthful ambition, all three are ready to take New York City by storm. But when a sexy new neighbor enters the picture, the realities of life, love and career goals start to test their dreams and the dynamics of their friendship in unexpected ways.

A winner of numerous awards at LGBTQ film festivals when it first debuted, Broadway Damage is ready to take you back to a different, but no less complicated time.

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

A swimmer’s relationship with his coach causes family problems – and an arranged marriage – in the coming-of-age drama Beyto

Beyto (Burak Ates) is a young man whose family are Turkish immigrants living in Switzerland. A dutiful student and an attractive and popular rising star at his local swimming club, he strives to make them proud, but his family’s stringent views about homosexuality means he has to keep a whole portion of his life and his identity secret.

Just as Beyto begins to discover first love with his coach, Mike (Dimitri Stapfer), his parents get word from friends who spotted him at Gay Pride Parade and become desperate to shut down any rumors that he’s gay.

Shocked and ashamed by Beyto’s budding relationship with another man, his parents lure their son to their home village in Anatolia and start arranging his wedding to Seher (Ecem Aydin), a female friend from his childhood. Suddenly, Beyto finds himself at the center of an unbearable love triangle.

A subtle, sensuous and moving love story, Beyto examines the drama of family tradition and integration, expressing the dilemmas of its characters while never losing sight of their humanity and love for one another.

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

Browse The Classic Queer Cinema Collection – 9 Groundbreaking Films Now Available on Dekkoo!

Dekkoo isn’t just a source for entertainment. We also offer a deeply engaging crash course in queer cinema history!

Starting with Queens at Heart, an eye-opening short film offering a look into the lives of four trans women during the pre-Stonewall 1960s, and continuing through to director Ira Sachs electrifying 2012 relationship drama Keep the Lights On, this collection exemplifies some of the most important queer cinema of the past five decades.

Including films like the landmark 1973 docudrama A Bigger Splash and Todd Haynes’ brazenly original Poison, which took the 1991 Sundance Film Festival by storm and helped launch the New Queer Cinema movement, these pioneering selections offer up a vibrant and expansive trip through time.

You can browse The Classic Queer Cinema Collection right now on Dekkoo. All of the titles are currently streaming.

A family struggles with coming out in this heartwarming comedy-drama set in 1973 Cape Cod

Set in 1973, Wild About Harry follows Harry Goodhart (Tate Donovan), a British widower who relocates to Cape Cod with his two teen daughters to start a new furniture business. As daughters Madeline and Daisy (Danielle Savre and Skye McCole Bartusiak) adjust to their new lives, Harry struggles to withhold a deep secret – his new business partner, Theodore (Adam Pascal), is more than just that.

Trying to fit in with the cool kids at school, the girls sneak into a nearby gay club. There, Madeline discovers the truth about her father. The secrets that each keep slowly threaten to tear the family apart – especially when word gets out about the new family in town.

Set during a time when American society was redefining its national identity as well as its personal views, Wild About Harry perfectly captures the look and the language of the period in which it’s set. Alternately funny and heartbreaking, the film tells a parallel love story, richly painted on a canvas of small town suspicion, traditional family values and the rapidly changing sexual identity of America in an era of unrest and progressive change.

Watch the trailer for Wild About Harry below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Sparrow

Written and directed by Welby Ings, Sparrow is a visually inventive 15-minute short film from New Zealand which follows an unusual young boy who believes he can fly.

Adorned with a set of homemade wings, he finds himself a frequent target of bullying at school. When he discovers the truth behind a family myth involving his war veteran grandfather, he finally discovers the strength to stand up to his abusers.

Visually stunning and deeply moving, Sparrow earned acclaim and awards at countless film festivals all around the globe when it was originally released in 2016.

Welby Ings recently made his feature-length debut with a boxing drama called Punch, which has also been earning a great deal of buzz at festivals over the past year and is expected to be released in the US in 2023.

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

Once a Year on Blackpool Sands follows two coal miners and secret gay lovers during one night in 1953

Based on a stage play of the same name, Once a Year on Blackpool Sands is a powerful new British drama inspired by real events – regarding an extraordinary night in 1953, several days after the Queen’s Coronation.

Macaulay Cooper and Kyle Brooks star as Tommy and Eddy, coal miners and secret gay lovers who spend their holiday at a quirky bed and breakfast in Blackpool, along with a few other “alternative” members of society. Together, they summon up the courage to do the first fabled walk towards Gay Pride.

Written and directed by Karlton Parris, the film offers a rare glimpse into an underrepresented era in LGBTQ history. Touching and poignant, Once a Year on Blackpool Sands portrays the lives of working-class gay men and the women who supported them in a time when homosexuality was a crime.

Watch the trailer for Once a Year on Blackpool Sands below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Alan Cumming and Garrett Dillahunt star in the emotional period piece Any Day Now

From writer-director Travis Fine, Any Day Now is a fact-based drama starring Alan Cumming and Garrett Dillahunt. Set in the late-1970s, the film follows a gay couple who take in a child with down syndrome, played by Isaac Levya.

Once their new living arrangement is discovered by the local authorities, the men find that they must fight their way through an unjust and incredibly discriminatory legal system to adopt the child they have come to love as their own.

A deeply moving drama which takes a look at a difficult time in history, Any Day Now earned rave reviews from critics and won audience awards at over ten film festivals when it first made the rounds in 2012, including Tribeca where it premiered. Alan Cumming was also given Best Actor awards from Outfest, Seattle, Key West and Napa Valley film festivals.

Watch the trailer for Any Day Now below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

Four same-sex couples and their kids are profiled in the uplifting new documentary Papa & Dada

A new documentary from award-winning Swiss director Daniela Ambrosoli, Papa & Dada shows what it means to raise children as a gay couple.

Four same-sex couples, including the famous ballet dancer John Lam and his husband John Ruggieri, talk about of the tough challenges and inspiring joys they experienced along to road to becoming a family.

The film paints a loving portrait of ordinary family life, showing how two fathers experience the same worries, hardships, joys and challenges as straight couples. The unconditional love shown to the children runs like a thread through the film – unobtrusive, but always present.

Funny, touching and inspiring, the film ultimately aims to prove that sexual orientation has nothing to do with raising a child. Being a parent simply means giving love. Period.

Watch the trailer for Papa & Dada below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: And Just Two More

A new 20-minute short film from Iran, And Just Two More concerns an unusual relationship.

Iman Niknam stars in the film as a trash collector who lives in a small trailer at the top of a hill. At first glance, his may seem like a lonely existence. However, he has the company of his dog and his lover… who just happens to be a mannequin.

When he learns that the Iranian government is conducting an important nation-wide census, he becomes determined to add his mannequin lover as a properly recognized citizen.

Funny and surprisingly heartfelt, And Just Two More comes from writer-director Ali Reza Mohammadi Rouzbahani, an up-and-coming filmmaker with style to spare who has recently earned acclaim on the international film festival circuit for his feature length debut Singo.