This year’s Sundance Film Festival screened more than two dozen LGBTQ features, shorts, and documentaries, including highly anticipated remakes of “Kiss of the Spider Woman” and “The Wedding Banquet.” Here is a rundown of two feature debuts by international filmmakers, a pair of queer shorts, and the latest documentary by Elegance Bratton that screened at this year’s festival.
In addition, Gay City News spoke to out gay director Addison Heimann about his new film, “Touch Me,” which premiered at the fest.
“Cactus Pears” (“Sabar Binda”) is a tender romantic drama, written and directed by Rohan Kanawade, about two unmarried men in India. Anand (Bhushaan Manoj) returns to his family’s hometown reluctant to participate in a 10-day mourning ritual after his father’s passing.
He finds a reason to stay when he reconnects with Balya (Suraaj Suman), a local farmer. A scene of Balya stroking Anand’s hair is very sensual, as is Anand eating a cactus pear that Balya leaves for him — a symbol of his unspoken love. Whenever the men hug, their romantic desire is extremely powerful. However, both men are wary of the reactions of this rural community to their sexuality. “Cactus Pears” pivots on whether Balya will leave with Anand and go live with him in Mumbai, or whether each man will experience heartbreak. This beautifully-made and well-acted film teases out the answer with a slow burn, but it is very affecting.
“Move Ya’ Body” is out gay director Elegance Bratton’s (“The Inspection”) affectionate documentary about the birth of house music. Vince Lawrence, who produced the first house records, recounts how this Black and queer subculture originated in the late 1970s in safe spaces like The Warehouse, a gay nightclub in Chicago — a city where redlining was used to officially segregate the Black community.
An extended sequence on the “death of disco” goes on too long, but it prompts Lawrence and others to pioneer a new musical genre, house, which mixed disco and electronica, and achieved tremendous success in the UK and abroad, but it was late to make it in America. “Move Ya’ Body” also addresses the whitewashing of Black culture to make it more mainstream, as well how Larry Sherman, the founder of Trax Records, a house label, denied payments to artists. Bratton uses interviews, archival footage, and re-enactments to tell this story, and its impact on race, the queer community, and popular music. It may a bit scattershot, but the music is groovy.
“Sauna” is an intense character study about Johan (Magnus Juhl Andersen), who works at the Adonis, a gay sauna in Copenhagen. Johan goes out to clubs, and hooks up with guys, but his life gets less lonely when he meets William (Nina Terese Rask) online.
“I’ve never been with a trans guy before,” Johan says when they start getting intimate. William is taken aback, but Johan’s curiosity soon leads to consent, and the guys start a hot and heavy relationship, complete with strap-on sex. However, an imbalance soon develops between them. Whereas Johan is devoted to William, and commits crimes for his lover, William is figuring out who he is, and needs to give Johan several reality checks.
“Sauna” remains compelling as Johan becomes more self-destructive — Magnus Juhl Andersen gives a blistering performance — and he is ably supported by Nina Terese Rask, who is so marvelous, viewers may wish the film was told entirely from William’s point of view.
One of the more striking queer shorts at Sundance was “Hold Me Close,” which eavesdrops on Tiara and Corinne, a Black queer couple as they express their hopes, dreams, fears, and desires to each other as they share a pint of ice cream, or discuss having a baby, or talk about their parents. They want to move through the world safely, and with freedom, and their voiceovers poignantly convey this as scenes depict the couple together or in separate rooms of their apartment. “Our love has its own galaxy,” one says, but directors Aurora Brachman and LaTajh Simmons-Weaver, illustrate that their personal story is universal in this lovely, life-affirming short.
Another notable short is director Luke Wintour’s “Sweetheart,” set in 1723 London. When Thomas (Eben Figueiredo) and Sam (Thomas Flynn) escape after being caught by the police having sex in a toilet, they flee to a Molly House run by Duchess (Ian Gelder). Thomas is uneasy among all the decadence in what is actually a safe space for queer people and comes to appreciate this secret environment where men marry each other, and other rituals are performed. “Sweetheart” offers a rich but brief glimpse into this history that is both compelling and eye-opening.
“Touch Me” is out gay writer/director Addison Heimann’s wildly inventive film about Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) and her gay bestie, Craig (Jordan Gavaris), who fall under the seductive spell of Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci), a hot alien who can heal their traumas through cross-species intercourse. Or can he? This fabulous sci-fi horror comedy is equally ticklish and violent as the friends jealously battle each other for the love of a man who may have nefarious intentions.
In advance of the film’s premiere, Gay City News spoke with Heimann about “Touch Me.”
There is a stunning opening monologue, frank descriptions of trauma and abuse, fabulous dance sequences, exploding heads, weaponized Q-tips, and an interesting use of sugar-free lemonade. How did you come up with all of the wild and crazy ideas in this film and balance the bitchy humor with the shocking horror?
The monologue was inspired by the [2022] film “Resurrection,” which had a batshit monologue in the middle that completely changes the movie. I wanted to do that, and my thought was: What if we started with that at the beginning? I think the tonal craziness of the movie is just my sense of humor. When you create a genre piece, and you try to explore certain themes — especially when you are exploring things as dark as what is in “Touch Me” — you can’t help but want to inject humor in there. With the heads exploding, crew members asked, “Where the f**k did you come up with that?” A lot of it is inspired by Japanese exploitation cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, known as “Pink films.”
“Touch Me” addresses ideas of addiction and healing, which were pertinent to your previous film, “Hypochondriac.” Can you talk about approaching this topic in a new way with this film?
I have obsessive compulsive disorder, which I didn’t know I had when I was making “Hypochondriac.” I thought it was just anxiety. When I was diagnosed later, it completely made sense. When you live with OCD, it is difficult because everything you have to do to [treat it] is counterintuitive to how the brain works. The vices I would use — weed, alcohol, or medications — were stop-gaps. That’s what Brian is personified as. I wanted to explore a world where you can make this [anxiety] disappear.
The characters are looking to lose their anxiety through Brian’s touch. What can you say about the idea of touch and pleasure as a metaphor and a danger?
There is something so visceral about tentacle sex in every kind of way and the idea of wanting to escape by having these sexually euphoric experiences. When we were creating the look of it, we wanted to emphasize the feel and want of this addiction. We have a musical cues and visual effects cues to show the idea of anxiety lifting. Like snorting cocaine, or having a shot of alcohol, or smoking weed, or any of these kinds of things, ultimately, it is also a danger. Its gradual danger. First you are having fun, but the downsides are so strong and menacing. That’s what the touch represents in the world. It giveth and it taketh away.
What decisions did you make about depicting Craig as an impulsive, and self-destructive gay man?
The representation of Craig stems from my own self-loathing. I was taking a deep dive into negative representations of my own self, and I wanted to examine and explore that. That’s my journey for him.
