The Male Gaze: Boy Trouble (2024)

The Illiac Passion

Prometheus, on an Odyssean journey, crosses the Brooklyn Bridge in search of the characters of his imagination. After meeting the Muse, he proceeds to the "forest." There, under an apple tree, he communes with his selves, represented by celebrated personages from the New York "underground scene" who appear as modern correlatives to the figures of Greek mythology. The filmmaker, who narrates the situations with a translation of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound , finds the personalities of his characters to have a timeless universality.

Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom

As Noah and Wade prepare to marry in Martha's Vineyard, the personal problems of their friends - and the unexpected arrival of rapper Baby Gat - threatens to permanently end their relationship.

La León

Deep in the lush river jungles of Argentina, Alvaro lives a solitary existence fishing and harvesting reeds. What sets him apart from the rest of his village is that he is gay. There are no other gay men in his world, his only means of expression is with the occasional outsider who passes through. Most of these men come via the river taxi El León, whose captain El Turu is a mean man with a homophobic streak and a secret. When illegal loggers appear in the jungle El Turu accuses Alvaro of aiding them, a dispute which leads both men towards confrontation.

Revelação

A young man faces his inner and outer demons in order to break free.

First Snow

On Christmas Eve, Léa and Juliette, a couple, want to rob a supermarket that Juliette knows is empty of surveillance on this festive evening. But, as much for each of them as for Eric, the vigil who is there after all, nothing will happen as planned. Besides, shortly before leaving him alone, the store manager gave Eric a gun, just in case.

Heat

Former child star Joe Davis, reduced to living in a cheap Hollywood motel while struggling for acting jobs, is lusted after by nearly every woman he meets, including Jessica Todd, a tightly wound feminist who has recently come out as a lesbian. When Jessica's mother, Sally, an emotionally needy has-been actress, meets Joe, she moves him into her enormous, tacky mansion as her new boy toy and attempts to get him acting work.

I Love You, I Don't

The petite waitress Johnny works and lives in a truck-stop, where she's lonely and longs for love. She develops a crush on the garbage truck driver Krassky, although her sleazy boss Boris warns her that he's gay.

Grande école

Paul and Agnes have been going out for quite a while and Agnes is shocked to learn that he'd rather live with two roommates on campus than move in with her. As soon as he meets one of his roommates, Louis-Anault, Paul's behavior changes - he is attracted to Louis without realizing so himself. Agnes, on the other hand, gets quite jealous and offers a bet: Whoever gets to have Louis-Anault first, wins... If she does, Paul will no longer explore his homosexual desires, if he does - she'll walk away. Meanwhile, Paul meets Mecir, a young Arab worker, who shows him there's more to life than elite colleges...

Dry Cleaning

A bored couple takes in a young man who turns their lives inside out.

Made on the Rooftop

Ha-neul, who is unemployed, moves to his best friend Bong-sik's house after breaking up with his lover. Together, they face the woes of love and relationships.

Marco

When a banker invites a sex worker to his London apartment, he finds himself coming face to face with both his own past, and one of the world's largest humanitarian crises.

Supernatural

Science fiction about a future Thailand. Futuristic, experimental, homo-erotic and with elements of a political essay. With a richness of themes and impressions that wouldn’t get past the censor in Thailand. The maker doesn’t mince his words and isn’t afraid to look reality in the eye.

Fanfic

Two high school students form an intense connection as they navigate the challenges of discovering and expressing their truest selves.

I Am Yet to Make You a Love Song

Greg and Alessandro are in the bedroom, looking at one another. The feeling of guilt and nostalgia of that moment may forever mark their lives, but it's only a gateway to allow love to walk freely amongst them. They look at one another. They feel one another. They love one another. Regardless of the unrevealed pictures or the unwritten songs.

Chemistry

Waleed, an uninspired student at Diablo Valley College, develops feelings for Liam, a student with high potential prowess. As the two continue to develop feelings for each other, their worries over their differing lifestyles prevent them from being together.

Who Would You Take to a Deserted Island?

On their last night together, four longtime flatmates' lives are suddenly upended when a secret is revealed during the course of an evening celebration.

Beneath the Skin

After his family falls apart Joshua is forced to move to Canada. It is there he meets Jay, a local tattoo artist who fled the violent actions of his parents back home in Alabama. Both young men, abandoned and lonely in their own way, find themselves falling for one another... until a pair of high school brats intrude on the boys' growing relationship.

The Third Sex

Klaus is a young man in post-war Berlin. He is drawn to his friend Manfred and, under the encouragement of their acquaintance, Dr. Winkler, explore the underground world of gay clubs and electronic music. His family begins to learn of his other life and do everything they can to set him straight.

Love Is Strange

After 39 years together, Ben and George finally tie the knot, but George loses his job as a result, and the newlyweds must sell their New York apartment and live apart, relying on friends and family to make ends meet.

American Beauty

Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend.

Make Up

After Ruth moves in with her boyfriend in a remote holiday park, tensions rise as she makes an unsettling discovery that lures her into a spiral of obsession.

The Enchantment of the Blue Sailors

In collage sequences, the surrogate of synthetic sensuality takes form and seduces the sailors in the guise of a Hawaiian girl. In ritual punctuation, she distributes deaths which seemingly only the hardy siren Fatality can survive.

Die Beautiful

Trisha, a Filipino transgender woman, suddenly dies while being crowned in a beauty pageant. Her last wish was to be presented as a different celebrity on each night of her wake, but her conservative father wants to bury her as a man.

In Between Seasons

When her son gets critically injured in a car accident, a mother discovers that there's more to his relationship with his friend than she had thought.

Something Must Break

A gritty story taking place in Stockholm, about the passionate love between the self-abusive Sebastian who wants to be a woman, and the easy-going Andreas who is certainly not gay.

Words of Devotion

Ootani and Tachibana have been inseparable since high school. Now that they're in college, they live together, they're happy and everything seems prefect. But their little world is disrupted when they meet an old high school friend, Yuki, who seems to have a crush on Tachibana, making Ootani feel jealous and insecure. Will Tachibana really choose him over a pretty girl?

Drive Me Home

Antonio and Agostino grew up together in a small town in Sicily; they dreamt of living a different life, somewhere else. Now thirty-year-olds, they both live abroad but they lost touch years ago. When Antonio discovers that the house he grew up in, which had been empty for a long time, is about to be sold at auction, he decides to leave and reconnects with his childhood friend. But their lives have changed a lot. Old conflicts and new revelations bring them through Europe on a truck journey.

Transamerica

A transgender woman takes an unexpected journey when she learns that she had a son, now a teenage runaway hustling on the streets of New York.

Requiem for a Dream

The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.

Walk on Water

Eyal, an Israeli Mossad agent, is given the mission to track down and kill the very old Alfred Himmelman, an ex-Nazi officer, who might still be alive. Pretending to be a tourist guide, he befriends his grandson Axel, in Israel to visit his sister Pia. The two men set out on a tour of the country, during which Axel challenges Eyal's values.

Paradise Now

Two childhood friends are recruited for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.

Billy Elliot

County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.

All About My Mother

Following the tragic death of her teenage son, Manuela travels from Madrid to Barcelona in an attempt to contact the long-estranged father the boy never knew. She reunites with an old friend, an outspoken transgender sex worker, and befriends a troubled actress and a pregnant, HIV-positive nun.

Bend It Like Beckham

Jess Bhamra, the daughter of a strict Indian couple in London, is not permitted to play organized soccer, even though she is 18. When Jess is playing for fun one day, her impressive skills are seen by Jules Paxton, who then convinces Jess to play for her semi-pro team. Jess uses elaborate excuses to hide her matches from her family while also dealing with her romantic feelings for her coach, Joe.

My Own Private Idaho

In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare's "Henry IV," Mike Waters is a hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike's estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.

7 Virgins

Tano is 16-years-old and is already sitting in jail. In 48 hours he’s a free man and off to the wedding of his brother. In the two days he recounts his neighborhood in a section of Sevilla.

Fire

In a barren, arranged marriage to an amateur swami who seeks enlightenment through celibacy, Radha's life takes an irresistible turn when her beautiful young sister-in-law seeks to free herself from the confines of her own loveless marriage.

Boys On Film 19: No Ordinary Boy

As Boys On Film reaches the end of its teenage years, we take a look at those unique boys who go one step further, who excite, invigorate, and always impress, who break boundaries, shape their worlds and are more than what they appear. Volume 19: No Ordinary Boy includes ten complete films: Scott T. Hinson's "Michael Joseph Jason John" also starring Eric Robledo; Abhishek Verma's animated "The Fish Curry"; Ben Allen's "Blood Out Of A Stone" starring Alex Austin and Oisín Stack; David Färdmar's "No More We" starring Jonathan Andersson and Björn Elgerd; Jannik Splidsboel's "Between Here & Now" starring Francesco Martino and Peder Bille; Amrou Al-Kadhi's "Run(a)way Arab" also starring Ahd and Omar Labek; Dean Loxton's "Meatoo" starring Calum Speed and Warren Rusher; Jake Graf's "Dusk" starring Elliott Sailors, Sue Moore, and Duncan James; Leon Lopez's "Jermaine & Elsie" starring Marji Campi and Ashley Campbell; and Marco Alessi's "Four Quartets" with Laurie Kynaston.

The Private War of Joseph Sargent

Porn Star Grayson Lange along with Addison Graham and Robby Valls star in a film about two mercenaries on a secret mission in the jungles of South America. Once captured, their last night together will reveal dark secrets and create sexual tensions. So much so that it will cause unforeseen collateral damage that stretches well beyond the jungle. This highly provocative and erotic film was part of Eroddity(s) 2. Now re-worked as a stand-alone short the film seems to take on new meaning.

The Sword and the Balance

Three young men are suspected of kidnapping and murdering a little boy. Most likely, two of them are really involved, but one is not. All of their pasts are questionable, riddled with violence and controversy. Neither the police nor the court can decide how to solve that puzzle.

Without Destination

Sin Destino follows the life of a 15 year old Mexican boy, Francisco, as he struggles to survive on the streets. His primary source of income is money raised by prostituting himself to men for sex, and the film implies that this learned behaviour has arisen as a result of a contact with a single man when Francisco was 9 years old. This man, Sebastien, is an "artist" who initially claimed to want to photograph the boy, but it is clear that their relationship at one time extended far beyond that of photographer/model.

Before the Fall

It's a classic case of opposite attraction: Handsome Ben Bennet is a gay, affluent, stylish attorney at the top of the genteel social set in southern Virginia, while Lee Darcy is a rough-hewn welder with a secret that he nightly tries to blot out with an excess of liquor.

The Strange Ones

A man and a boy, traveling to an unknown destination, find respite in a motel swimming pool. On the surface all seems normal, but nothing is what it seems to be. Short film not to be confused with the 2017 feature film with the same name.

Farewell to Autumn

Decadence, homosexuality, excess wealth, infidelity, alcoholism and drugs all played a major role in the decline of aristocracy.

Boy Meets Boy

Harry has been partying for 48 hours when he meets Johannes on the dance floor of a club in Berlin. With 15 hours until his flight home, Johannes offers to help him print his boarding pass. This mundane task leads to a day together wandering the city. The contrasts in their lives and values force each one to confront their own truths.

The Male Gaze: First Kiss

The Male Gaze is a new series of releases from New Queer Visions that showcases short LGBTQ films from across the world. The first instalment, First Kiss, brings together five shorts that are based around men experiencing romantic and/or sexual interaction with other men for the first time. It takes in films from Sweden, Indonesia, USA, Australia and France giving a rounded look at how similar experiences are depicted across the world. The films are: Naked [Naken] (2013); Pria (2017); Walk With Me (2018), One Night Only (2018); Michel's Mouse [Tapette] (2016).

The Gemini

A secret story of a same-sex love affair between two Myanmar men. After getting into a forced marriage with a rich girl, one of the men is killed in a plane crash. Much later, his wife is approached by a man, a bestselling writer, and soon suspects that he may have been her husband's lover. But now a real mystery begins to emerge as the evidence mounts her husband may still be alive.

For You

A coroner reunites with a great love from the past, realizing that the memories are more vivid than ever.

Package Deal

Aa story about a newlywed that receive a surprise guest that will eventually turn the couple’s world upside down.

The Adjuster

An uptight insurance man and his film-censor wife become a kinky couple's landlords.

(Nie)znajomi

A group of seven friends come together for dinner. What starts out as a normal evening, evolves into something else when they decide to play a game and read all text messages aloud and answer all phone calls on speakerphone...

Victim

A web of blackmail and murder attracts the attention of a barrister with a seemingly idyllic life, threatening to derail his career on the path of success.

Orbits

Orbitas is the story of an impossible love which revolves around a planet at war.

Solids by the Seashore

In a corrupted southern Thai town struggling with its major environmental damage, a young Muslim woman is facing an inner struggle against the imposing wall of her cultural and religious background, as she develops a relationship with a female artist from out of town.

Private Photos

A sweet couple invite a third person over for the night, who brings a lustful energy to spice things up.

I Am My Own Woman

The life story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who survived the Nazi reign as a trans woman and helped start the German gay liberation movement. Documentary with some dramatized scenes. Two actors play the young and middle aged Charlotte and she plays herself in the later years.

The Page Turner

Mélanie Prouvost, a ten-year-old butcher's daughter, is a gifted pianist. That is why she and her parents decide that she sit for the Conservatory entrance exam. Although Mélanie is very likely to be admitted, she unfortunately gets distracted by the president of the jury's offhand attitude and she fails. Ten years later, Mélanie becomes her page turner, waiting patiently for her revenge.

Poppy Field

A young Romanian gendarme, Cristi, tries to find the balance between two apparently opposing parts of his identity: that of a man working in a macho hierarchical environment and that of a closeted gay person who tries to keep his personal life a secret. Cristi is called in for an intervention at a movie theatre, where an ultra-nationalist, homophobic group has interrupted the screening of a queer film. After one of the protesters threatens to out him, Cristi spirals out of control.

An American Hate Crime

Jake, a college drop out, along with his friends decide to take their homophobia to a whole other level when when they decide to download a gay oriented social media app where they would lure and attack innocent victims. Noah, a just coming to terms gay teen, doesn't know who to talk to about his feelings and turns to the same social media app the attackers use on their prey. Told from both perspectives of the main characters and a chilling conclusion that will alter everyone's lives forever.

Bathroom Stalls & Parking Lots

Far from his home country of Brazil, a gay man goes on a San Francisco adventure with his friends in order to find the right hookup.

Service

A struggling family owns a Filipino porn theater where prostitutes conduct their business.

Philadelphia

Two competing lawyers join forces to sue a prestigious law firm for AIDS discrimination. As their unlikely friendship develops their courage overcomes the prejudice and corruption of their powerful adversaries.

The Opposite of Sex

A 16-year-old girl visits her gay half-brother and ends up seducing his boyfriend, thus wreaking havoc on all of their lives.

Ekaj

EKAJ is a love story between two drifters, a naive teenager and a hustler. Ekaj meets Mecca who takes him under his care. Mecca has AIDS and multiple problems of his own. He is high all day but still manages to be the only voice of reason in Ekaj’s hopeless world. They cruise the city together looking for money and places to stay. Although Ekaj makes some money as a prostitute, he finds himself discarded, and lacking what it takes to survive in the city. Their mutual loneliness leads to genuine friendship.

Hunter

Two friends vie for the attention of a stranger who passes out at their doorstep.

Fujimi Orchestra: Cold Front Conductor

A boys love story about two musicians who are part of an orchestra. Considered as a musical genius, Tonoin Kei became the new conductor of Fujimi much to the disappointment of Morimura Yuuki who is the acknowledged leader of the group. Yuuki who was smitten by one of the female musicians is unaware that the new conductor is actually in love with him. As they both struggled with their new roles, one misunderstanding led to another until a serious confrontation ensues involving the two young men.

Bohemian Rhapsody

Singer Freddie Mercury, guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and bass guitarist John Deacon take the music world by storm when they form the rock 'n' roll band Queen in 1970. Hit songs become instant classics. When Mercury's increasingly wild lifestyle starts to spiral out of control, Queen soon faces its greatest challenge yet – finding a way to keep the band together amid the success and excess.

Three Headed Beast

A long term couple on the verge of closing their open relationship find themselves in uncharted territory when one of them forms an intense connection with a younger man. Their individual fears and desires collide over a hot Texas summer.

2 Weeks

When 20-something-year-old Tanya begins to realize she’s asexual, the highly charged sexualized world she lives in as an actress and partner begins to fall apart and feels more and more like an unbearable nightmare.

Crossing

Lia, a retired teacher from Georgia, learns from her young neighbor, Achi, that her long-lost transgender niece, Tekla, has crossed the border into Turkey. In search of Tekla, Lia travels to Istanbul with the unpredictable Achi, where they explore the hidden depths of the city.

Whisper

Anna, a 16 year-old girl from the sticks, trades her military education for life in the big city Running away to Prague opens a whole new world where she drinks her first cappuccino and meets the kind of people she has only seen in movies.

Drawn Out Love

Felix has been raised by his grandmother and has never met his father. His father Johan, doesn't even know he exists. Felix decides to become a regular in his father's bar in Amsterdam to secretly learn more about the man he has never known.

My Summer of Love

In the Yorkshire countryside, working-class tomboy Mona meets the exotic, pampered Tamsin. To seal their friendship, Mona introduces Tamsin to her born-again Christian brother and helps her spy on her adulterous father. Bound together by their secrets, the two girls see their friendship deepen and enter into dangerous waters.