Category: Short Film

Short Film Spotlight: Physical Therapy

Jason Genao, star on the Netflix series ‘The Get Down’ and ‘On My Block,’ leads the short comedy Physical Therapy as a cute young doctor faced with a difficult life decision.

Genao plays Ronnie, an openly gay doctor whose life takes an unexpected turn following an innocent mistake at work. Young and deeply compassionate, though somewhat naïve, he doesn’t let the incident deter him from getting back on his feet and doing what is right.

When he’s faced with a tricky ultimatum – keep his unstable job working with low-income communities or take a financially-attractive new job at a private practice for children of the mega-rich – he’s forced to reexamine his ideals and his future.

A passion project, Physical Therapy was created in an effort to celebrate the lives of brown, Latinx and LGBTQ+ health care and physiotherapy workers… whose stories have been, up to this point, largely invisible in Hollywood productions.

Watch a short trailer for Physical Therapy below. The film 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.

Short Film Spotlight: Center Lights

An experimental 7-minute short from Argentine writer-director Cristian Franco-Tuñon, Center Lights is a melancholy, but incredibly sexy examination of gay male desire, longing and fantasy.

As night falls, a lonely young man – smoking a cigarette and clad in a pair of skimpy white briefs – watches the world go by from his apartment balcony.

The countless city lights, flickering on and off, blend together with the people on the streets – suggesting the vast array of encounters the outside world has to offer. Our protagonist, however, is only interested in the alluring man who lives next door.

Though he suspects that his feelings will not be reciprocated, something is calling on him to take a chance. Later that night, he works up the courage to confront his feelings – and the man in question – directly.

Watch an evocative short trailer for Center Lights below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.