“DELIGHTFUL, ABSURD, FIERCELY POLITICAL” – The New York Times
“A BEEFCAKE FANTASIA OF MASCULINE CAMARADERIE” – The Film Experience
“HILARLOUS AND YET STILL HEARTFELT” – Film Inquiry
“MIRTHFUL AND SENSUALLY RESTLESS” – Variety
“SERVED UP WITH LASHINGS OF HOMOEROTICISM” – Screen International
“ONE OF THE YEAR’S TEN BEST” – John Waters
From transgressive queer auteur Joao Pedro Rodriguez (O Fantasma, The Ornithologist), the new musical fantasia Will-O’-the-Wisp begins in the year 2069. On his deathbed, Portugal’s King Alfredo recalls the social activism and erotic exploits of his youth in the early years of the 21st century.
As a fresh-faced, curly-haired young prince (Mauro Costa), he shocked his wealthy family by becoming a volunteer fireman – both to do his part for the community and to be surrounded by a bevy of beefy firefighters. When he meets Alfonso (Andre Cabral), his instructor, new possibilities open as the pair become deeply immersed in love, desire and a will to change the status quo.
This sexually-frank new film – a mix of historical tableau, musical comedy, queer romance and post-colonial provocation – maintains a joyous energy while examining heavy themes.
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Horseplay, the new feature from prolific filmmaker Marco Berger, takes place during a scorching Argentine summer, following a group of testosterone-charged male friends who get together at a luxury villa to enjoy a little vacation. They’re soon drinking, partying hard, making videos together… and testing one another’s boundaries.
A rare mix of homophobia and horseplay come together to create a wildly homoerotic atmosphere. Under the surface, jealousy and violence begin to emerge. A twisted triangle of friends – a repressed gay man, a secret bisexual boy and a homophobe – will push tensions to the limit.
As with much of Berger’s work – he previously helmed films liked The Blonde One, Young Hunter, Taekwondo and Absent – Horseplay expertly amplifies the homoerotic undercurrents of frat-style male friendships, exploring his characters’ toned physiques as much as their inner thoughts. While the surface of the film offers a wealth of hunky eye-candy, it also doubles as an intelligent, challenging and sometimes shocking critique of sexual misconduct and toxic masculinity.
Watch the trailer for Horseplay below and click here to pre-order your copy. The film will be available on DVD beginning June 27th.
Though it’s not an explicitly gay film, there is a distinctly homoerotic sensibility to Tommy Guns, an audacious and enigmatic new genre mash-up from Angolan-Portuguese director Carlos Conceicao.
Tommy Guns invokes the ghosts of Angola’s colonial past while embracing the symbolic power of genre filmmaking. The story begins in 1974, just one year before the country’s independence from decades of Portuguese rule. Wealthy colonists are fleeing the country as Angolan revolutionaries gradually claim their land back.
Meanwhile, a tribal girl discovers love and danger when her path crosses that of a Portuguese soldier. Another group of soldiers, completely cut off from the outside world, blindly follow the brutal orders of their commander in the name of serving their country.
Nothing stays fixed for long in this genre-shifting cinematic puzzle, which playfully swerves from art house drama to war film to zombie flick to escape thriller with exhilarating control.
Winner of Best European Film and the Youth Jury Award at the Locarno Film Festival, Tommy Guns has elicited comparisons to the work of Claire Denis, Miguel Gomes and even M. Night Shyamalan, and announces a bold and exciting new voice in Portuguese and Angolan filmmaking.
Watch the trailer for Tommy Guns below and click here to pre-order your copy. The film will be available on DVD and Blu-ray beginning June 13th.
From director Aaron Bear, Yes I Am tells the incredible story of Ric Weiland, one of the first employees at Microsoft who had a brilliant and creative mind.
A champion of gay rights, Weiland came out in the 1970s and used his wealth to create social change, donating millions of dollars to fund more than 60 nonprofit organizations. Those efforts to establish representation and resources for the LGBTQ+ community continue to have a profound impact today, shaping the future of equality.
Featuring voiceover from Zachary Quinto and reenactments wherein Weiland is played by actor Gil Bar-Sela, Yes I Am: The Ric Weiland Story speaks to the pioneer’s life and legacy, but also his mental struggles and personal demons, pulling back the curtain on the self-doubt and impostor-syndrome that weighed on a man who gave so much to the world around him.
Watch the trailer or Yes I Am below and click here to pre-order your copy. The film will be available on DVD starting July 11th.
Produced by Grindr – yes, THAT Grindr – as part of its ongoing efforts to spotlight queer talent and enhance content and community, the irreverent and fast-paced comedy Bridesman is now available in a new feature-length Director’s Cut.
Jimmy Fowlie stars as a ridiculously self-centered single gay man who returns to his hometown to be in his childhood best friend’s wedding party. The lone man-of-honor among the bridesmaids, he spends the majority of his time undermining the whole affair.
Hoping to save his bestie from what he considers an unbearably boring life of marriage and monogamy, he tries stealing away her husband-to-be before the couple can recite their vows. Shannon DeVido and Sydnee Washington co-star in this wickedly funny dark comedy which features sharp commentary on gay dating, heteronormative standards and even Grindr itself.
Watch the trailer for Bridesman below and click here to pre-order your copy. The new feature-length version is coming to DVD June 27th.
The first release from the brand-new distribution label Cinephobia Releasing, Sublime is a thoughtful and tender handling of a teen’s emerging sexuality.
Shy 16-year-old Manuel (Martin Miller) comes alive when he, his best friend Felipe (Teo Inama Chiabrando) and other buddies form a garage rock band. The two boys, friends since childhood, have a close, easy relationship made even more intense with the band and their music making.
Strains develop for Manuel when his best mate starts dating a girl. Manuel also begins to date a female classmate, yet all the while suppressing his nascent sexual feelings for Felipe. Confused, and fearful that his feelings are not mutual, he retreats into himself, eventually lashing out which him to confront his feeling head on.
Director Mariano Biason has created a sensitive feature debut with this sweet, queer, coming-of-age drama.
Watch the trailer for Sublime below and click here to pre-order your copy. The film will be available on DVD starting June 20th.
From co-directors Kurt Braun and Richard Gayton, Love in Country is an ambitious indie film that aims to honor LGBTQ+ veterans – and all Americans – serving in the military. Set in 1968, it follows two gay U.S. Army point men who fall in love while serving in Vietnam.
Ian Alexander and John Reese (Michael Southworth and David Garber) are both highly trained Army Rangers whose relationship is an open secret – with varying degrees of acceptance, conflict and rejection. The other members of their squad have more important issues to deal with than this couple’s unconventional sexuality: survival and doing their job.
Meanwhile, Ian and Reese’s bond makes them unstoppable on the battlefield. When the deranged Captain Heinrick (Vincent van Hinte) leads them on a particularly risky mission, Ian and Reese must accomplish the objective and try to survive to keep their love alive.
Watch the trailer for Love in Country below and click here to order your copy. The film is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.
Concerned Citizen centers on Ben and Raz (Shlomi Bertonov and Ariel Wolf), a young, attractive, financially secure gay couple ready to take the next step in their relationship in the form of having a baby through surrogacy.
On his work computer, Ben designs the housing and social architecture of the future. Outside his apartment, he plants a new sapling. But this act of ever-so-subtle gentrification to the street outside his apartment soon leads to a tragic series of events for the refugees living in the building.
Concerned Citizen is a challenging, satirical parable for our times, with themes as relevant to contemporary Tel Aviv as any large city.
Winner of the Best Screenplay Prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival, Israeli director Idan Haguel‘s film is a morally complex, refreshingly smart dark comedy about personal responsibility and the uneasy balance between assuming the identity of a “concerned” citizenry and the adoption of a victim complex.
Watch the trailer for Concerned Citizen below and click here to pre-order your copy. The film is coming to DVD June 6th.
Henri (Jean-Hugues Anglade) is a frustrated teenager living with his parents in a provincial French coastal town. When they drag him to the train station to bid adieu to his sister, Henri sneaks off to a secluded bathroom and interrupts a hustler named Jean (Vittorio Mezzogiorno) satisfying the masochistic desires of an older male client.
Henri falls desperately in love with the sexy criminal, but Jean evades Henri’s affections. Undeterred, Henri shadows Jean as he traverses the dark and dangerous underbelly of their sleepy village. But as he descends deeper and deeper into Jean’s world, there may not be an easy way out.
Adrift in a French underworld of hustlers and pick-ups, Patrice Chereau‘s 1983 drama The Wounded Man (better known internationally as L’homme blessé) is a revelation: an amazingly accomplished work that genuinely channels the transgressive, unsanitized sensibility of Jean Genet, boasting a breakout lead performance by young Anglade and a script that took co-writers Chereau and legendary gay French author and activist Herve Guibert six years to perfect.
The result is a rich, strange and sumptuous film – leading us to exhilaratingly mysterious and unfamiliar spaces both physical and psychological. It’s soon to be available once again on DVD, Blu-ray and VOD thanks to a brand-new restoration by the cult indie distribution label Altered Innocence.
Watch the trailer for the new restoration below and click here to pre-order your copy. The Wounded Man (L’homme blessé) will be available starting May 23rd.
