The newest feature from writer-director Keith Behrman, Giant Little Ones is a heartfelt and intimate coming-of-age story about friendship, self discovery and the power of love without labels.
Franky Winter and Ballas Kohl (Josh Wiggins and Darren Mann) are childhood best friends, leaders of their high school swim team and are enjoying their high school popularity with their girlfriends. On the night of Franky’s seventeenth birthday, Franky and Ballas have an unexpected sexual encounter that starts to tear their friendship apart and affect their families and friends.
While struggling with his conflicting feelings, Ballas starts a rumor about Franky’s sexuality. The fact that Franky’s father had come out as gay a year before the story begins further fuels the rumor.
Solely based on assumptions, Franky is bullied and ostracized by his friends and peers. Life becomes further complicated for Franky when a secret past relationship with Ballas’ sister Natasha (Taylor Hickson) is rekindled. As Franky and Natasha bond over shared difficulties, love and romance start to blossom along with self-acceptance.
The story of Giant Little Ones began when Behrman grew concerned over the continuous LGBTQ youth suicides he was seeing in the news. These stories resonated with Behrman and while at a silent retreat he had a dream that sparked the film’s narrative.
“I think as human beings we have a wide range of capacities and experiences and attractions, areas of ourselves that we often don’t feel free to explore or fulfill or understand,” explains Behrman.
“The film arose out of wanting to tell a story that talks about the ambiguity we can experience in our lives in terms of who we are, how we change and come to understand different things about ourselves, and about the resistance that can come from those around us and our society.”
Co-starring Kyle Maclachlan and Mario Bello, Giant Little Ones is shaping up to be one of the year’s best and most powerful gay movies (at least so far – it’s early). NPR even called it “Everything Love Simon could have been.”
Check out the trailer for Giant Little Ones below and click here to pre-order your copy. It’s coming to DVD in June.
