Category: Religion

Author and performer E. Patrick Johnson challenges Southern stereotypes in the documentary ‘Making Sweet Tea’

Giving voice to a population too rarely acknowledged, researcher and performer E. Patrick Johnson’s 2008 novel “Sweet Tea” collected more than 60 life stories from black gay men who were born, raised and continue to live in the South.

Based on two years of ethnographic research, the book offered a window into the ways black gay men negotiate their identities, build community, maintain friendship networks and find partners – often in spaces that appear to be anti-gay.

A hit at countless film festivals around the country, the profoundly moving new documentary Making Sweet Tea follows Johnson as he travels to North Carolina, Georgia, New Orleans and Washington, D.C. in an effort to come to terms with his past and reconnect with some of the men he interviewed for the book. Johnson also transformed the book into several staged plays over the course of a decade.

Making Sweet Tea combines performance footage with interviews of the men, showing how they have changed since – and been changed by – their depictions in his book and plays. The film covers the subtle complexities of Johnson’s relationships with these men, with his family and with his hometown in North Carolina. It also restages Johnson’s performances of the men’s narratives in their homes, in their churches and at their jobs, sometimes with them directing him or even participating in the scene.

Blurring the line between art and life, Making Sweet Tea offers a glimpse into the lives of people not often given a platform to speak and demonstrates how research, artistry and real life converge.

Watch the trailer for Making Sweet Tea below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

‘Supernatural’ is a heady sci-fi fantasia – an art film, political essay and erotic gay drama

One hundred years into the future, an unseen leader transforms Thailand into a strange new world where everything is orderly, citizens earn merit through good deeds and humans are forbidden from touching one another.

For the characters in Supernatural, nostalgia for the past, as well as the painful longing for some form of sexual intimacy, are starting to take their toll. Jumping backward in time, the past lives of three of these characters are revealed.

Packed with gorgeous imagery and sensual homoeroticism, Thai writer-director Thunska Pansittivorakul’s heady sci-fi fantasia amplifies the power of touch while telling an epic story with limited resources. Part experimental art film, part political essay and part erotic gay drama, the film tells individual stories that take place in both the past and the future while commenting on gay life in the present.

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

Short Film Spotlight: The Word

A father and son (Karim Ashtari and Ali Ashrafiju) take to the road for a driving lesson. It’s a scenario that will be familiar to many, but in Iranian writer-director Hadi Khanmohammadi’s The Word, the roles are reversed.

In this intriguing 15-minute short, it’s the son who is teaching his aging father how to drive. But as this potential bonding moment plays out, an increasingly tense and difficult conversation ensues.

As the two men begin to air their grievances with one another, we get a strong sense of the abuse and patriarchal entitlement the son has had to endure. The father also wants to know why his son shies away from the topic of marriage… and spends so much time with his closest male ‘friend.’

Though it doesn’t offer any easy answers, The Word has a lot to say about traditional gender norms in Iran. It also adeptly captures the feeling of having to censor yourself in the presence of a closed-minded parent. Unfortunately, sometimes it really is impossible to teach an old dog new tricks.

Watch a short teaser trailer for The Word below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Into Temptation

The lingering effects of abuse and trauma are explored in Into Temptation, a deeply provocative 20-minute drama from writer-director Quinn da Matta.

Michael, played as an adult by Juan Manuel Salcito and as a young boy by Jaxon Ballenger, was abused by his priest, a trusted authority figure and friend, as a child. Tom McClaren, who plays the priest in both flashbacks and the present setting, starts the film off tied to a bed.

As a kid, Michael took the older man’s manipulative declarations of love literally. He doesn’t feel like a victim, but rather an equal partner whose romance was unfairly interrupted by outside forces.

Now that he’s been reunited with the object of his infatuation, he’s willing to go to extreme lengths to make the priest understand his feelings and honor the promises he once made.

To Michael, his actions are an expression of a deep, abiding love. But, it’s a twisted, dangerous and warped sense of love that he can’t genuinely comprehend due to his manipulation and abuse such a young age.

Into Temptation begins as a revenge thriller but carefully transforms into a thought-provoking drama that explores the consequences of sexual abuse on a minor and the lingering psychosexual effects.

Watch a short trailer for Into Temptation below. The short film is now available on Dekkoo.

Oscar nominee Colman Domingo stars in the profoundly moving 30-minute drama ‘North Star’

Colman Domingo, Malcolm Gets, Laura Innes and Kevin Bacon make up the primary cast of this astounding 30-minute short film that challenges the meanings of freedom, faith and family.

A winner of countless awards at film festivals all around the globe, North Star is easily one of the most acclaimed gay short films ever made.

Domingo, who also produced the film, stars as James, a rural rancher who makes incredible sacrifices to care for his dying husband – all while his zealot sister-in-law attempts to impose her will and a pair of televangelists peddle shame, fear, and division as the cornerstones of faith.

A deeply personal film by writer-director P.J. Palmer, based on his own experiences of being in same-gender, multi-cultural relationships, North Star is a profoundly emotional drama that will linger with you love after the credits roll.

Watch a short teaser trailer for North Star below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

A weekend of mischief becomes a battle for survival in the stylish British thriller ‘B&B’

A gay couple pays a price for exercising their rights in this award-winning thriller from writer-director Joe Ahearne.

Sean Teale and Tom Bateman star in B&B as partners Fred and Marc. A year before the main events of the film, they were denied a room at St. Jude bed and breakfast by its fundamentalist Christian owner Josh (Paul McGann). They took the matter to court, won a discrimination suit and have now returned.

Though Fred would happily take the victory and move on, Marc is excited to rub some salt in Josh’s wound – insisting on sleeping as a married couple in the home of a man who has made his resentment known.

Events take a deadly turn when another guest, with far more sinister intentions, arrives. Marc and Fred’s weekend of fun turns into a suspenseful battle for survival.

With plenty of twists and turns, this clever Hitchcock homage will keep you guessing to the bitter end.

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

A man attempts a turbulent journey out of the closet in the moving drama ‘El Houb (The Love)’

Having spent decades hiding his sexuality from his family, Moroccan-Dutch businessman Karim (Fahd Larhzaoui) decides to come clean after his father catches him in bed with a man.

Caught up in a panic over the thought of coming out to his traditional Muslim parents (Slimane Dazi and Lubna Azabal), he barricades himself in their closet… literally.

As he feverishly revisits his childhood memories, negotiates a budding romance with a new Ghanaian boyfriend (Emmanuel Boafo) and wages a long-delayed battle royale to uproot his family’s conservative attitudes, a series of darkly hilarious and unflinchingly frank conversations begin – and the family is finally forced to confront the truths that have so long been avoided.

Loosely based on the theater work and actual experiences of lead actor and co-screenwriter Fahd Larhzaoui, El Houb (The Love) cascades through time. Director Shariff Nasr manages to straddle a line between uproarious comedy and heartbreaking drama while examining family dynamics, cultural taboos and hard-won self-acceptance.

Watch the trailer for El Houb (The Love) below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: The Station In-Between

Swiss actors Peter Fischli and Carlos Leal star in the tender and visually lush short film The Station In-Between as Theo and Louis, two gay men with little in common who are compelled to go on an emotional journey together.

Louis’s husband, who was also Theo’s best friend, was recently killed during a homophobic attack. The pair are traveling by train to Paxmal, a spiritual peace monument in the Swiss Alps, to scatter their beloved friend and partner’s ashes.

Along the way, almost as if by fate, they meet a variety of memorable characters. Some confront them with traumas of the past, while others remind them of the good things in life and the beauty that surrounds them even in the darkest of times.

Gorgeously crafted by director Sven Schnyder, this touching and compassionate 19-minute short film is an ode to unexpected friendships, as well as life, death and everything in between.

Check out the poster for The Station In-Between below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

Short Film Spotlight: Angelos at Christmas

Greek writer-director Fotis Zampetakis proves that Christmas movies come in all shapes, sizes and genres with the 18-minute nail-biter Angelos at Christmas.

While his friends are at his house preparing for a party on Christmas Eve, Angelos is in the streets of Athens doing some last-minute shopping. When a group of children enter a bookstore to sing carols, Angelos becomes intrigued by one of them.

He attempts to convince the little boy to go with him in his car. Seemingly looking to escape from his own dark reality and intrigued by the promise of 50 euros, the boy decides to follow the stranger. As the sun sets and the boy falls asleep, Angelos drives them through the woods, heading toward a mysterious destination.

Without giving too much away, not all is at it seems in this stylishly-shot short film. Employing a John Carpenter-like piano score, Zampetakis skillfully ratchets up the horror movie tension, leading to a climax that packs an emotional wallop, but probably not the one you’ve been primed to expect.

Watch a short trailer for Angelos at Christmas below. The full short film is now available on Dekkoo.