Tag Archives: gay

Regarding Abandoned Sites and Sexual Discovery

Abandoned sites usually cause curiosity for exploration and adventure. There’s a sense of excitement when we are surrounded by uncertainty and a thirst for danger. These sites also allow for a chance to remove oneself from everyday life and have a moment of self-reflection. From a young age, while exploring my sexuality, I can recall finding hidden spaces and out of the way locations with boyfriends in which, for a brief moment, no one could tell me what to do or who to love, where we could escape society and just be together. We construct these sites for satisfying our sexual pleasures and urges, they’re made into cruising grounds, runaway spots or sites to release our destructive nature. There’s a bridge between desire and death and these will be further explored in the following 5 shorts.

With the release of our DVD of BOYS ON FILM 13: TRICK & TREAT, I look back at some of our memorable shorts from the BOYS ON FILM collections that examine these discarded spaces as sites for escapism and sexual-discovery.

Remission – Dir. Christopher Brown (Boys on Film 13)

In our latest BOYS ON FILM release, we take a look at two young men and a boy who roam the overgrown English countryside over the space of 2 years, in an attempt to escape an unknown deadly virus. The two men are forced to take a horrific decision after the boy’s behavior puts them in increasing danger. These dangers become apparent in the unknown territories these boys are positioned in, the uncertainty of what’s to come and the boy’s display of unusual behaviors which, eventually, become life threatening. Exploring abandoned houses in search for safety and supplies, there is a moment in the film in which the two young men engage in sex, possibly to relieve frustrations or, perhaps, out of love.

REMISSION is a terrifying short about survival in the unknown and the consequences of trust as a tool for life and death, the last five minutes of the film will no doubt leave you speechless.

Boys Village – Dir. Till Kleinert (Boys on Film X)

Set in St. Athan Boys Village in South Wales, a holiday camp opened in 1925 as a summer camp for the sons from families in the South Wales coalfield.

The film focuses on a young boy and his imagination – at first we’re unsure of why Kevin roams the abandoned camp while talking to his friends made of twigs and rubbish. Is he in the process of exploring? Escaping? He has been eleven years old for quite some time now. Has it been years or decades? Shattered glass and debris lay scattered all over and the countless trap falls and opportunities for injury become a haven for young boys and exploration. After witnessing a group of vandals who visit the site in a destructive manner, Kevin’s sexual curiosity is awakened when he sees a particular attractive teen.

Prora – Dir. Stéphane Riethauser (Boys on Film 9)

Prora is a good example of abandoned sites as a stimulant for sexual discovery in moments of excitement and danger. Two teenagers, Jan and Matthieu, embark on an adventure in the deserted former Nazi holiday camp and communist military complex in Germany. Whilst exploring their surroundings they put their friendship at risk. Running through the corridors in a destructive manner, smashing windows and playing rough. The two boys, high on adrenaline, end up confronting their feelings in a moment of sexual realization. The two teens end up making love across the scattered glass on the complex floors. Away from the world and positioned in an empty complex all to themselves, this triggering of emotional discovery is further heightened.

The Strange Ones – Dir. Christopher Radcliff & Lauren Wolkstein (Boys on Film 7)

An unknown destination, a man and a boy travel in search for the unknown. Finding respite in what seems to be an abandoned motel swimming pool, the two travelers are confronted by the motel owner where truth and lies become one blurring situation. On the surface all seems normal, but as the owner asks more questions, nothing is what it seems to be.

Bramadero – Dir. Julián Hernández (Boys on Film 2)

Bramadero: A place where deer and other wild animals in heat prefer to go.

Our final short explores our animalistic nature. Hassen and Jonás find a spot on the outskirts of Mexico City where they seduce one another in a merging of body and mind. The construction site holds as a playground for desire: the positioning of a mattress in the middle of the floor becomes an immediate invitation for sexual discovery. The industrial steel scaffolding acts as barriers between the two men, yet as they move in between the structures a divergence between their raw naked bodies and the man-made barriers is constructed. The uncertainty of the dangers of abandoned construction sites ultimately lead to death, as Bramadero is described as a pole animals are tied to in order to tame them or kill them.

by Serden Salih

Riot in a donut shop? It must be PRIDE season!

DRAG IT OUT IN THE OPEN!

Most of us know the story of June 27, 1969 – when police raided The Stonewall Inn and New York’s gay community rioted in the streets for three long, game-changing nights: events now widely accepted as the birth of the modern Gay Rights Movement.

Ten years before that, however, in the arid, utopic city of Los Angeles the queer community was already fighting worthy, rowdy battles: namely in a late-night eatery called Cooper’s Donuts.

Perched between two gay bars – Harold’s and the Waldorf – the donut shop sounds like the 1950s LA equivalent of one of the Chicken Cottages in 2015 Soho, London: a late night hang-out for gays, hustlers, queers, lesbians and trans folk.

But it wasn’t always as much fun as that sounds: one hot night in May 1959 two cops turned up and started harassing the clientele, checking IDs, randomly arresting some drag queens and younger men. This time, the crowd had had enough, and soon a full blown booze-and-baked-goods fueled riot ensued.

So – to kick off Pride season – have a donut today (and a drink, and maybe a quick cruise in a Krispy Kreme if you fancy it). But don’t forget those down-n-outs, queens, queers and prostitutes that were the original voices for the emancipation of the entire LGBTI community today.

Poor, but sexy: BERLIN on film

When Klaus Woweriet, Mayor of Berlin in the early noughties, declared Berlin ‘poor, but sexy’, he prompted a new wave of expats to pile into the city looking for some free, or at least very cheap, love. For many, from Christopher Isherwood to Bruce LaBruce, Berlin is about one thing: emancipated sex. (Isherwood himself once summed it up perfectly in three words: ‘Berlin means boys.’)

We’ve always had a love-hate relationship with Germany’s most fascinating city – love because of the culture, boys, girls, the unsurpassed Berlinale film festival, and hate because said festival takes place in February of every year, when it is absolutely, unspeakably cold.

Because Paris and New York usually get an unfair amount of fawning, frothing film coverage, we thought we’d pay homage to this peculiarly idiosyncratic city, and some of the brilliant films that’ve been made there.

1. Metropolis (1927)

Although not set in Berlin, but in a futuristic, urban dystopia, Fritz Lang’s 148-minute magnum opus was made there. Also – Lang was inspired to make the film on first seeing the New York skyline, so maybe this doesn’t belong here. But – seeing as it’s one of the most important (and controversial – you should look up some of Lang’s ‘techniques’ for creating ‘authenticity’ on set…) films of all time, I couldn’t not pop it in.

2. Cabaret (1972)

Now we’re talking. When I first saw this film, it wasn’t the decadent, sexy club scenes that stayed with me: what did was the haunting scene where the handsome young Nazi sings ‘Tomorrow Belongs To Me’ and the strange, seductive way this seduces the town folk at the country fair, who all start to join in. The scene is perfectly, almost violently juxtaposed to the rest of the film, and demonstrates, to devastating effect, the counter-forces to Berlin’s hedonism that grow throughout the film. A scary scene, and a brilliant film about a lost era and a city to be reclaimed.

3. Goodbye Lenin (2003)

A clever tragicomedy about a mother-son relationship, but also a powerful political drama about the ridiculousness of Berlin’s division. But don’t be put off by its grand satirising of both socialism and capitalism, the film is, first and foremost, a comedy, and well worth your time. Also – a lot of what I know about Berlin’s history comes from this film, so if you’re keen to learn and have fun (and who isn’t?), definitely check it out.

4. The Lives of Others (2006)

THIS is a heavy-handed drama if ever there was one – worth watching especially for central actor Ulrich Muhe’s central performance. An intense thriller stuck in the nightmarish, Orwellian world of 1984: Muhe plays an agent of the secret police sent to spy on a writer and his lover, but soon finds himself totally absorbed, perhaps obsessed, with their relationship. Moreover, guys, the title is amazing.

5. Otto (2010)

Subtitled ‘Up with dead people’; Bruce LaBruce’s queer cinema classic is a porno parody political nightmare at 24 frames per second; in other words, it’s pure Berlin. What other city could produce a film about a gay zombie looking for flesh, both for sex and for food? Unparalleled, inimitable, watch it if you dare.

6. Berlin 36 (2013)

Hitler’s relationship with the Olympics is fascinating. Next time you’re in Berlin, be sure to visit the Nazi Olympic park for some fascinating insights into how the Nazis approached this Attic world event. In Hitler’s view, once the world had been conquered by fascist ideology, Berlin would become a kind of global athletic capital, where the Olympics were to be held every year.
But don’t let me bore you with my lecture (and it is a lecture!) – this is a powerful emotional drama about Aryan policy and racial discrimination in Weimar Berlin, inspired by true events and a great portrayal of living in Berlin in the late 1930s.

7. Silent Youth (2015)

Our new movie – SILENT YOUTH – pulsates with the sexual intensity you can’t elude on the streets of Berlin. About two boys who meet by chance and discover themselves in each other, the film could be read as an allegory for everyone’s first experience of Berlin. Featuring some beautiful, lingering shots of the city’s abandoned runways and dark, romantic underpasses, the Berlin of Marlo and Kirill’s film is one which resonates with us all.

BONUS MOVIE: Futuro Beach (2015 – coming later this year!)

Apparently this is the first German-Brazilian co-production film ever made! A masterful technical achievement, FUTURO BEACH is hot as hell even though half of it is set in deepest, darkest Berlin winter. Stay tuned for when this film hits cinemas in May – it’s definitely one to catch on the big screen.

The Times’ ★★★★★ Review for EASTERN BOYS

On 6th December 2014, the day we released EASTERN BOYS in the UK, the wonderful Wendy Ide from THE TIMES published the following ★★★★★ review of our ‘nail-biting’ film. Have a read below:

Some films take a while to engage their audience. Others, like EASTERN BOYS, grip you from the first frame. This constantly surprising picture by Robin Campillo (writer of THE CLASS) opens enigmatically. The camera hovers high above the Gare du Nord in Paris; it might have been shot by a surveillance drone. We pick out a group of young men, eastern European immigrants, looking for the opportunities that a crowded station offers. Daniel, an older man, moneyed and suited, gazes at Marek, one of the younger men, with something between hunger and longing. They arrange a meeting at his apartment the next day.

Then the tone of the film changes dramatically – the whole gang turns up. He watches as they drink his booze and empty his home of everything they can carry. It’s a brilliant sequence – sexually charged; fluid; dangerous. The camera gets in close, weaving through the dancing bodies at a party that the host has no choice but to join. It’s a credit to Campillo’s confident writing that despite this trauma a persuasive relationship grows between Daniel and Marek. And that, in a meticulously structured, nail-biting final act, Daniel will do anything to secure a new life for Marek.

– Wendy Ide, The Times

LGBT History Month Part 2: ACTIVISM!

‘Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard.’ – Harvey Milk.

One of the strange things about the numinous idea of ‘human rights’ is that you can’t recognise one until you see that it has been violated. LGBT rights are, by definition, then, about protection from violence rather than prosecution, following that, they’re about acceptance, love, and the ubiquity of both.

Here at Peccadillo we’re very pleased to have released three documentaries about some of the great LGBT rights battles of our time. And, seeing as it’s LGBT History Month here in the UK, we thought we’d write a small piece about our three testaments to those battles:

BEFORE STONEWALL (1984)

Last year this film celebrated its 30^th anniversary, and its power remains unshaken. BEFORE STONEWALL exposes the fascinating and unforgettable decade-by-decade history of homosexuality in America, from 1920’s Harlem through to World War II and the witch hunt trials of the McCarthy era, before, of course, winding up at the Stonewall Inn one summer night… A truly brilliant, award-winning documentary that still packs a lot of punch.

WE WERE HERE (2011)

Attitude magazine sort of summed this one up better than I could, writing that the film was ‘devastatingly, astonishingly powerful. This is a film that needs to be seen today more than ever.’ Exploring how San Francisco dealt with the AIDS epidemic, WE WERE HERE is an edifying must-see that received accolades at film festivals the world over. It’s a film Harvey Milk (quoted above), would be proud of – speaking to our capacity as individuals to rise to the occasion, and to the incredible power of a community coming together with love, compassion and determination.

VITO: The Life of Gay Rights Activist VITO RUSSO

One of the ultimate gay activists, a man who changed the face of queer film theory forever, Vito Russo found his voice as a critic of LGBT representation in the media. This is a documentary as much about his life as an academic and cinephile as it is about his activism, but, if he’s unknown to you, you really must take the time to acquaint yourself with Vito – you won’t forget him.

So – if you’re feeling proud of who you are this month, whatever your sexual orientation – take a look at some of these documentaries about the brave pioneers who paved the way for so many of the freedoms we take for granted today!

Get ready for DEPARTURE

We know that you like to know more about our films from their early stages. Well, we’re very proud to announce a brand new film that we’ll be bringing you at the end of this year.

DEPARTURE by Andrew Steggall is currently in post-production and stars Alex Lawther (who gave an award winning performance as the young Alan Turing in The Imitation Game), French brooding heartthrob Phénix Brossard (La Lisière) and everyone’s favourite mum and oracle Juliet Stevenson.

Here’s an early publicity still of Alex Lawther who plays young Elliot in the film. Look interesting?

Keep fully up to date by joining the Departure Film Facebook page:
http://on.fb.me/1DadKdc

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