To mark International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) 2012, Austrian filmmaker Gregor Schmidinger has onlined his part-crowdfunded gay short film which tackles the issue.
Homophobia follows a young gay soldier battling his inner demons, as well as bullying from his comrades. On the final day of his military service he gets posted to the wooded Austrian-Hungarian border for some night-time guard duty with the fellow soldier he’s been lusting after.
If Andrew Haigh’s recent gay hit is called ‘Weekend’, then director Ira Sachs latest movie could be called ‘Decade’. But it’s not; it’s called Keep The Lights On’ and it charts the start and end of a turbulent but passionate gay relationship over a ten-year period and is largely based on Sachs’ personal experience.
Sexy Danish actor Thure Lindhardt (check out his impressive turn as a gay fascist in last year’s Brotherhood) plays the Sachs-esque character, a gay documentary filmmaker, in this co-dependent coupling and young actor Zachary Booth fills the role of his drug and sex addicted literary agent boyfriend. They hook-up one night in 1997 for a no-strings encounter and then spend the next ten years locked in a tug-of-war between their love for each other and their self-destructive compulsions.
Writer/director Patrik-Ian Polk tongue-in-cheekily labels himself the “gay Tyler Perry”. He’s the creative force behind the popular Logo cable TV series Noah’s Arc and its hit gay movie spin-off, Jumping the Broom, released in 2008. They deal with issues like marriage, infidelity, promiscuity, violence and STDs within the black gay community.
Polk’s new movie, The Skinny, continues these themes, but in a less comic setting. It sees five former college friends reuniting in NYC for the city’s Gay Pride parade. They party, break-up, fight, take drugs, have sex, lust after one another, discover secrets and recite the poetry of Langston Hughes, who’s house they visit in Harlem. It features a sexy cast, including some notable gay porn stars, and tackles some uncomfortable taboos. The soundtrack is also written by Polk – he’s a member of LA band Fol Chen.
The Skinny is currently touring movie theaters around the US – check dates here – and is lined up for a Logo TV premiere in the summer. You can watch a promo below.
Gay director Eytan Fox returns to his favourite stomping ground, the Israeli army, with his fifth feature movie, a follow-up (although not strictly a sequel to) his 2002 breakthrough film, Yossi and Jagger.
That movie followed the doomed, secret love between army commander Yossi and second-in-comand Lior, known to his fellow troops as “Jagger” because of his rock star good looks.
In this new film, simply titled ‘Yossi’, the central character (played again by Ohad Knoller) is now a doctor working in Tel Aviv but still firmly in the closet. He affords himself virtually no social life, bar the occasional internet hookup, and chooses to sleep at the hospital. A fateful encounter sends Yossi on a roadtrip through southern Israel and a chance meeting with a group of young soldiers reawakens something inside the depressed, workaholic doctor.
You can watch a clip from Yossi below. In it, we see the potential humiliation that can come from not updating your profile pics.
Yossi is currently playing at NYC’s Tribeca Film Festival.
We reported last week that gay-themed cerebral botherer Simple Moves, starring Pau Masó, had finished shooting in New York City. We can now bring you a first look at the movie’s adrenalin-pumping teaser trailer.
It’s about a young Russian immigrant who is pushed into gay prostitution after losing his family. Watch the trailer after the jump…
