Tag: Gay Shorts

2024 Entry #007 01-04-24 “The Den” (aka “La tana”) is a 15 minute 2015 Italian short film which was directed by Lorenzo Caproni (“La prima volta”, “The Necklace”, “Lazarus Come Out”) who co-wrote it with Fabio Marson. The story follows Christian (Daniele Mariani), who on a vacation to the beach with his wife (Laura Sinceri) and son (Nicola Luna Maroder) encounters his old friend Luca (Emanuel Caserio), who he had a complex sexual history with… and history often repeats itself.

This is part of the same collection as the previous short I watched, but I liked this entry much better. It left me with many questions about the characters, as shorts often do, but it felt natural. There’s a dangerous edge to the proceedings here but it appears to have a relatively happy ending and I’m not knocking it.

2024 Entry #006 01-04-24 “Lolo” is a 14 minute 2019 German short film which was written and directed by both Leandro Goddinho & Paulo Menezes who went on to create other queer shorts with “It Is Not the Brazilian Homosexuals Who Are Perverse, But the Situation in Which They Live” & “Du Bist So Wunderbar”. The story focuses on Lolo (Zev Starrett), who is an openly gay 11-year-old boy trying to convince Max (Valentin von Schönburg), his first love, to go public with their relationship at the school party, while also spending time with his close friends, Toby (Sam Atlas) and Elena (Rhea C. Tober).

So, this was mostly horrible. The entire cast is made up of children and their performances are not good but with this script it’s hard to blame them for any of this. I do like the poster and the cinematography isn’t horrendous, and I did also like one of the settings – but I wish all of these elements were part of a better film, because this is just scraping the bottom of the barrel.

I purchased this short from Amazon Prime a couple of years ago as part of a gay short film collection titled “The Male Gaze: Hide and Seek”. I hope the other entries are better than this one.

Skip it.

2024 Entry #003 01-03-24 “Aikāne” is a 14 minute 2023 animated short film based on a mythical love and adventure story rooted in the Hawaiian tradition of aikāne, or intimate partners of the same sex. Co-directors Hamer and Wilson, a married couple, were inspired to make the film by their belief that everybody, especially young people, deserve to see a queer love story with a happy ending. The film was produced by Hinaleimoana Kwai Kong Wong-Kalu, also known as Kumu Hina, who is a Native Hawaiian māhū – a traditional third gender person who occupies “a place in the middle” between male and female, as well as a modern transgender woman.

The story follows a valiant warrior, wounded in battle against foreign invaders, who falls deep into a mysterious underwater world. When the octopus who rescues him transforms into a handsome young man, they fall in love and an epic adventure begins.

This was charming, brief and unexpectedly lovely. I know nothing of Hawaiian mythology and was not expecting the sea creature love story – but it was cool nonetheless.

The film has been awarded at multiple children’s, indigenous, LGBTQ+ and other film festivals around the world, and has qualified for the 96th Academy Awards by winning top jury awards at the New Hampshire and Hawaii International Film Festivals.

“Aikāne” is currently streaming for free on YouTube.