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Big Gay Picture Show

Taking a look at the world of film through gay eyes - news, reviews, trailers, gay film, queer cinema and more

Taking a look at the world of film through gay eyes - news, reviews, trailers, gay film, queer cinema & more

Young Hunter Trailer – First teen gay love takes a dark turn into blackmail

October 12, 2020 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Director Marco Berger’s films are nearly always worth a watch, partly because he’s extremely good at creating sexual tension. That looks to continue with his latest film, Young Hunter, which follows in the footsteps of his other extremely watchable gay-themed films, such as Plan B, Absent, Hawaii and Taekwondo.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘Ezequiel, a fifteen year old boy on the cusp of his sexual awakening, meets handsome, twenty-one-year-old Mono and quickly starts a relationship. Mono invites him to his cousin’s villa, to spend a weekend together, but while returning from the trip Mono disappears, no longer responding to Ezekiel’s texts. Ezequiel is surprised and confused until Chino, Mono’s cousin, sends him a hidden camera video of Ezekiel and Mono having sex, blackmailing him into making his own sex tape with a minor to be sold on the dark web, in order to keep his secret hidden.

‘Ezequiel, with an impossible choice, decides to seduce Juan Ignacio, a thirteen-year-old boy whom he knows from school and suspects has a crush on him. Ezequiel turns from prey to hunter against his own will and begins a seduction work on Juan Ignacio.’

The film hits DVD and VoD on October 26th. Take a look at the trailer below. [Read more…]

CHECK OUT THESE RELATED ARCHIVES:
DIRECTORS: Marco Berger  

Taekwondo (BFI Flare Review) – A young gay man becomes a spy in the world of sexy straight boys

March 21, 2017 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Arturo Frutos, Francisco Bertín, Gabriel Epstein, Lucas Papa, Nicolás Barsoff
Director: Marco Berger, Martín Farina
Running Time: 105 mins
Certificate: 18
Release Date: March 27th 2017 (UK)

Marco Berger has made his name with gay-themed fare such as Plan B, Absent and Hawaii, all of which have been interested in growing sexual tension between men. Martin Farina meanwhile brought us the documentary Fulboy, about a group of straight footballers, where the gayness came through the voyeuristic eye of the camera. Here the two Argentinian directors come together for Taekwondo, which is both voyeuristic and about sexual tension at the same time.

It’s summer, and Fer (Lucas Papa) has invited his new friend German (Gabriel Epstein), to come for a vacation at his house, where there’s a pool, sauna and a bit of luxury. There’s also a group of other young men, all of whom have known each other for years, and who have an easy camaraderie. Casual nudity is common, as is talk about sex. When together, they are partway between grown men and boys. [Read more…]

Hawaii (DVD Review)

June 23, 2014 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Manuel Vignau, Mateo Chiarino
Director: Marco Berger
Running Time: 102 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: June 23rd 2014 (UK)

Marco Berger has made a bit of a name for himself in the indie queer cinema world with the likes of Plan B and the Berlin Golden Teddy Award winning Absent. He also directed half of the shorts that made up the collection Sexual Tension: Volatile. Each of those shorts featured two guys negotiating the edge of attraction as it perhaps built towards a sexual release.

In many respects Hawaii takes the idea behind that anthology and expands it into a feature-length movie. [Read more…]

Sexual Tension: Violetas Trailer – The short film anthology looks at the ladies

July 15, 2013 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment


Last year directors Marco Berger and Marcelo Monaco brought us Sexual Tension: Volatile, a collection of short films linked by the theme of men getting up close and personal, even if they never get it fully on. This year it’s the turn of the ladies, with Sexual Tension: Violetas.

Here’s the official synopsis: ‘Exploring the art of seduction between two women, through six very different, incredibly sexy stories, SEXUAL TENSION: VIOLETAS is an assured lesbian classic in the making. Two guests of a hostel become roommates (and more); a keen shop assistant helps a woman uncertain about what dress to buy; great passion starts to develop between girls during a picnic, a few women get a little carried away whilst discussing films at a restaurant, and two high-class escorts discover that they are attracted to each other when they are in bed with a client. Never less than exciting and passionate, SEXUAL TENSION: VIOLETAS offers up six unforgettable stories of lesbian attraction.’

It’s currently doing the film festival rounds, and should be out on DVD later this year. [Read more…]

CHECK OUT THESE RELATED ARCHIVES:
DIRECTORS: Marco Berger, Marcelo Monaco  FILMS: Sexual Tension: Violetas  

Sexual Tension: Volatile (DVD)

February 7, 2013 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Lucas Lagre, Mario Veron, Javier De Pietro
Director: Marco Berger, Marcelo Monaco
Running Time: 101 mins
Certificate: 18
Release Date: February 11th 2013

Marco Berger made his name with gay themed flicks like Plan B and the Berlin Teddy award-winning feature Absent. For Sexual Tension: Volatile he’s teamed up with Marcelo Monaco – who has a background in porn – to create six short films (each directors helmed three) all themed around men getting close in a variety of situations, where the sexual heat gets turned up even if they never fully get in on. [Read more…]

Plan B’s Marco Berger Wants To Go To Hawaii With A New LGBT-themed Project

October 9, 2012 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment


Argentinian director Marco Berger has produced a couple of fascinating gay-themed movies with Absent and Plan B (we chatted to him about those films, and you can have a read of that here). Now he’s hoping to put together a new one called Hawaii, and has launched a Kickstarter campaign to try and help bring the movie to the screen.

Here’s the synopsis (and remember it’s written by someone whose first language isn’t English): ‘Hawaii is a film about a helpless man that is reunited with a childhood friend who helps him, thus creating a bond that goes beyond friendship.

‘Martin seeks for an odd job at Eugenio’s house. When Eugenio recognizes Martin as a childhood friend, and realizes his current situation, he decides to give him work for the summer. Unintentionally, a power & desire game is generated and a strange relationship starts to grow, but it cannot flourish mostly because of the social differences that grew between them since childhood. This kind of barrier, typical in Jane Austen’s novels, is resignified in a contemporary story of social classes.

‘The film is about solidarity but also about the power game that is generated when one person is relying on another. The idea is to explore power, helplessness, social boundaries, brotherhood, desire and love.

‘Similar to Plan B, Hawaii is a small & simple story, easy to shoot independently. All the film takes place in summer, in a countryside house, and only two characters carry the story forward. Working with a small team, the film can be shot with $40,000. While reaching the goal would allow us to shoot the film, it would be great if the goal is exceeded and we can make things more comfortably. Maybe even recording the music in an actual professional studio! ;)’

Manuel Vignau & Mateo Chiriano are set to star. Take a look at the vid above to find out a bit more, and head over to Kickstarter to help get the movie made – Berger is a talent worth supporting, so it may well be worth giving a bit of cash.

CHECK OUT THESE RELATED ARCHIVES:
DIRECTORS: Marco Berger  

Plan B (2009)

April 8, 2012 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Manuel Vignau, Lucas Ferraro, Mercedes Quinteros
Director: Marco Berger
Running Time: 98 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: September 13th, 2010

When Bruno sees his ex-girlfriend Ana with her new boyfriend, Pablo, he decides he wants her back, even though she only seems interested in occasional sex sessions. Realising the usual tactics won’t work to convince her – he comes up with a Plan B. He’s heard Pablo has had liaisons with guys, so Bruno determines that he’ll befriend Pablo without letting him know who he is, and then make him fall in love with him. Then, after this causes Pablo and Ana to break up, he can swoop in and be her knight in shining armour when she’s sad and lonely.

Admittedly it is the sort of plan that could go hideously wrong at any moment, but he manages to meet and get in with Pablo, convincing him that he’s not the guy Ana has a picture of on her wall. However while Bruno is convinced he’s being devious and clever, something happens that he never expected; he starts having genuine feelings for Pablo. [Read more…]

Absent (Ausent) (DVD)

April 7, 2012 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Starring: Carlos Echevarría, Javier De Pietro, Antonella Costa
Director: Marco Berger
Running Time: 86 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: April 9th, 2012

Winner of the Teddy Award at the Berlin Film Festival – a gong given to the best movie on LGBT themes – Absent comes to DVD fresh from a centrepiece screening at the recent London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival in March.

The film is about a teenage boy, Martin (Javier De Pietro), who pretends to have something wrong with his eye so that his teacher, Sebastian, has to take him to the hospital. When they’ve finished with the doctor, Martin comes up with a convoluted story about having arranged to stay the night with a friend that they can’t get in touch with and then gives reasons why he can’t go home. Unsure what to do, the teacher decides to take him back to his apartment and let him stay the night. It’s clear though the student has ulterior motives, being somewhat flirtatious and touching Sebastian’s leg while he sleeps. [Read more…]

Absent – Director Marco Berger talks about his thriller

April 5, 2012 By Tim Isaac Leave a Comment

Marco Berger found great success on the world cinema and LGBT film circuit with his 1009 debut feature, Plan B. Now he’s back with Absent, which has had even more festival success, picking up the Teddy Award at the Berlin International Film Festival and recently getting one of the centrepiece screenings at the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival. While Marco was in the UK for the LLGFF screening, we caught up with him for a chat about the film.

Absent is released on DVD on April 9th, via Network Releasing, and is also included alongside Plan B in a ‘Made In Argentina’ set, released the same day.

For those who haven’t seen Absent, can you tell us a bit about it?
It’s a story about a boy that is obsessed with a teacher and makes kind of a strange plan to be in his apartment. The boy says he’s damaged his eye at the swimming pool and so he asks his teacher to go to the hospital, and then the boy creates a situation where it seems like he’s going to be alone with nowhere to go for the night. The teacher asks his girlfriend what he should do, and she says to go to his apartment and let the boy sleep there. So after this first night, the teacher realises it was all a lie by the boy, but he doesn’t know why, and now they both have a secret and the boy has the power, as he can say whatever he likes about that night. It’s a thriller, with the teacher trapped in this problematic situation.

Where did the idea for the film come from?
I wanted to talk about the desire of the young people. The situation is the opposite of when you think about a teacher and a student. You think it would be the teacher who would take advantage of the situation or he would be the abuser. But here’s it’s the student who desires a lot, and his desire for the teacher grows, so he has the power.

Where did you find the two main actors, as they’re very good?
Javier De Pietro, the young boy, it was through a casting. I received a lot of pictures through the internet and I brought in just 10 boys. I tried him with the teacher and I liked it.

The teacher is the opposite of what I was looking for. I was looking for a blonde guy, a kind of Brad Pitt figure, but the actor, Carlos Echevarría, isn’t that. However he is a prestigious actor in Argentina and he called me and wanted to audition. I saw him and I liked him and I realised that it was better that he’s not a Greek god; he’s just a very regular guy. He could be a taxi driver, he could be anything, but the actor is very prestigious and very good. I got him and then I looked for the boy, and when I tried them together I like them very much.

There’s quite a long build-up of tension between the student and teacher. Is that that something that’s difficult to create?
Not really. I do the script and I do the editing, so I have something very clear in my mind from the start. It’s very difficult to explain how I do that, but in the beginning of the film, the first part of the film, I like to shoot the bodies, and create tension between the bodies even when they don’t speak. To create tension through uncertainty, though the student staring and the teacher not knowing what these things mean. When you study film they say, if you show a face and then show food, the spectator will put that together to think hungry, and here it’s the same. When you put the body of the student and then the body of the teacher, the spectator is going to create the tension and build up the idea of a sexual tension between them. I shoot it and work a lot in the editing on the timing of everything, but it’s difficult to explain.

I also like that, for quite a long time in the film, there’s almost two stories going on – one of what the teacher thinks is happening and one of what the boy thinks is happening – is that what you were trying to go for?
Well, I don’t want to talk about the second half of the movie too much, but actually that was the idea, to confuse the spectator and play with his head. I build a story about this crazy boy. So I’m first on the side of the teacher, helping the audience to create this idea of a kind of a monster, so the audience is thinking, ‘Oh this boy, what is he doing? How is this possible?’ So with the neighbour, with the guy in the street, with the teacher talking about the problem, I’m constructing a story that could go anywhere. It’s a thriller where you’re not supposed to know where it’s going. Then I like the other idea – what if you see everything again, without the helping of the thriller? I like playing with the audience, so that just because I put creepy music and set it up a little like a Japanese horror film, you construct the psychology of the student, but when you see the film again, the events again, you see it was a film about love, and not so much about obsession, and some creepy, crazy boy.

So it was on purpose to play with the spectator, to make people think about what they are seeing. So it’s like a fantasy, a game – you see this thriller, you see this danger, but what if you see things again, and see the other side of the story?

I did think that particularly with the music, as it’s quite an intense score, with different music it would be a very different film?
Yes, as I said, in the first part I wanted to work with the thriller genre, so I worked with the composer, who was the same guy who worked with me on Plan B, and we thought a lot about it. I said to him that you have to think that this is a terror movie, you have to put in the head of the spectator that something really dangerous is going to happen, so that you wonder what will happen if the boy touches the teacher, if the boy kisses the teacher, what is so dangerous? Nobody is going to kill anybody, but the music helps you construct this fantasy in your head.

Is it difficult to make films about gay themes in Argentina? How open to gay themes are people over there?
I don’t’ know. I think I came out with Plan B at a very good moment, as it went out at the same time as the issue of marriage between couples of the same sex was out there. So it was almost in the same moment. But I don’t think people are going to the cinema thinking they’re going to go see a gay movie, not even with Plan B. In both film I talk about people who have a problem, where it’s impossible to tell the story in another way – for example in Absent, if it was not a boy, if it was a girl, she would never sleep in the teacher’s house, and also in Plan B, if he wanted to take the other boy’s girlfriend, it’s impossible to  tell it in another way. But audience don’t go in with the idea that they’re go to see a gay film, they just want to see a film, and then they realise that it’s a gay story. So it’s not so difficult, in Argentina at least.

You’re currently in the UK for Absent’s screening at the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival. Are you excited to bring the movie to a British audience?
Yes, I am very much excited. I’m quite anxious and I hope people understand the point of the film and it’s a good reception.

Thank you Marco.

CHECK OUT THESE RELATED ARCHIVES:
ACTORS: Carlos Echevarría, Javier De Pietro  DIRECTORS: Marco Berger  FILMS: Absent  

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