Gay Short Films & Web Series

Former NSync member Lance Bass is adding another string to his bow, as he’s turned his hand to directing with the short film, ‘A Tale Of Two Dads’. The project is part of AT&T’s Love is Changing History Project, where they will donate $1 to The Trevor Project for everyone who shares the site or one of the videos on the site, in honour of LGBT History Month.

It’s a fun, well-made short, with a good sense of humour. Although everyone will be able to see the ‘twist’ coming from about three seconds in, it’s still make a good point that love-is-love and that children can have great families no matter the gender make up of their families.

Take a look at the short and head over to the Love Is Changing History site, where you can help raise cash for The Trevor Project simply by sharing the video. [Read more…]

A few weeks ago we posted the first episode in the new queer-themed web series Six Months For Six Weeks, which mixes a gay love story with original music. Now Part 2 is here and it’s well worth a watch!

An adaptation of Coons’ one-man show of the same name, “Six Months” is the product of a successful Kickstarter campaign, which wrapped earlier this year. “Six Months for Six Weeks” is the brainchild of singer-songwriter John Coons. A semi-autobiographical one-man show built around original songs, it is an honest, funny, and heart-breaking new piece of queer theater. “Six Months” tells the story of two twenty-something men in Portland, Maine, their six-week “relationship with an expiration date” and its aftermath, set against 2009’s “Question 1” same-sex marriage debate. Alternatively tender and satirical, it looks at the definitions and value we place on relationships in our changing world.

John Coons premiered “Six Months” as a live one-man show in Seattle in June 2012 and has since performed it in venues on both coasts including Boston’s Cloud Club, the PortFringe 2012 festival in Portland, Maine, as a fundraiser for Washington United for Marriage, and at “Don’t Tell Mama” in NYC’s theater district. In May of 2013, Coons ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund a webseries adaptation with fellow Seattleite, Alex Berry (creator of the Jinkx Monsoon documentary series, “Drag Becomes Him”).

A native of Maine, Seattle-based songwriter John Coons is forging a genre-defying career that has included singing as a soloist with the Seattle Opera, popular recording artist Ben Folds, the Pittsburgh Symphony, and performing the national anthem for the Red Sox at Fenway Park. Coons has performed in venues from Mobile, Alabama to Skagway, Alaska, and has shared the stage with Amanda Palmer, Foreigner, and the award-winning cabaret duo, The Jane Austen Argument. For more information, visit www.johncoonsmusic.com.

Alex Berry is a freelance video maker who lives in Seattle. He has worked with many local companies and artists to create videos that emanate a unique style and feeling. Some of his most well known work has been the “Drag Becomes Him” series starring Jinkx Monsoon, as well as his continual work with Rudy’s Barbershop. He’s planning on making his first feature film. [Read more…]

I know (you’re the one who’s right) is kind of a French short film version of the It Gets Better campaign, trying to show young people struggling with their sexuality that despite the negativity that may be around them, they’re deserve happiness and that being gay isn’t a bad thing.

Although the subtitles are slightly badly translated, it’s still sweet, simple and very well made, using the anonymity of its characters and its Parisian backdrop to great effect. It’s only two minutes long but still works extremely well.

You can take a look at the film above. [Read more…]

Modern art video pieces tend to get a bad rap, with many seeing them as the pinnacle on pointless, self-indulgent modern art. While that’s a very myopic view of it, I’m sure a lot more gay men would be interested in them if they were all like Brooklyn artist Idan Bitton’s ‘First Kiss’, which he’s now released on Youtube.

It’s simply 84-minutes of Bitton kissing Alfredo Ferran (and I reckon they probably both at chapped lips by the end of that).

However Bitton isn’t impressed that his video was flagged and age-restricted on Youtube, despite the thousands of videos of straight kisses on the site that anyone can watch (we understand his frustration, as we recently discovered one web filtering firm initially classed this site as pornography and still won’t stop classing it as ‘Controversial: Adult Material’).

Bitton told Towleroad, ‘As the video started becoming popular, and surprisingly inspiring to viewers, it got flagged and age restricted on YouTube while other “straight” kissing videos are not. Some of them even have titles such as “How to Kiss Dirty” and such… I wanted to bring this to your attention in the hopes of raising the awareness to this issue…’

As for the piece itself, he says, ‘While the camera is still, the kiss is in motion provoking the viewer to stay and watch. Idan and Alfredo do not interact with the viewer, but offer a peek into their intimate moments of commitment. This long lasting, present and unapologetic kiss defines our current gay rights momentum. We are here, we love each other, and this is what it looks like.’

Take a look above. [Read more…]

The use of montage has a long history in cinema (it’s not just about showing Rocky working out as he prepares for a fight), and indeed many have used it as an artform in its own right. Artist Leo Herrara has now used montage to tell his version of 50 years of gay history via a series of interlocking clips.

Herrera writes of his film, ‘The story is told through the trance of The Fortune Teller (played by Stanley Frank) and created using archival and modern footage. The film is a documentary and time capsule, paying homage to psychedelic films of the 1960′s and the modern art of the YouTube Montage film. From Mapplethorpe to Lohanthony, Uganda to Burning Man, Vogue to Sissy Bounce, AIDS to The Berlin Patient, meticulously edited clips create a kaleidoscopic five-minute journey through more than 50 years of gay history…

‘The Fortune Teller is comprised of 50 years of imagery and footage. The 5-minute clip took six months to film and assemble, and is made up of 100 carefully selected clips. The style is a take on Lana Del Rey’s “Video Games” video, or The Scissor Sister’s “Let’s Have a KiKi”. It also pays homage to some of our modern day gay “preachers,” such as Chris Crocker or Lohanthony, or Kid Fury, who, as we always have, developed ways to use technology to reach one another.’

You can find out more about the clips that make up the film here. [Read more…]

The sweet short film Beloved is well worth a look. It follows a theme many of us will be able to relate to – being in love with somebody but not feeling able to say it, especially if it’s with another man.

It also seems to take place in a world solely populated by ginger-haired people!

It does slightly spoil the movie that even the title on Youtube says it’s a gay short film (and we haven’t helped), but it’s still effective. It’s only five minutes long, so there’s no excuse not to watch. [Read more…]

The web series Where The Bears Are gained a lot of fans last year, especially amongst those hoping for something a bit different to the twinky types we usually see on screen. Now it’s coming back with Season 2.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘Where The Bears Are is a comedy, mystery, web series about three big, hairy, gay men living together in Silverlake California, who find themselves caught up in a murder mystery. It’s the Golden Girls meets Murder She Wrote, with Bears. Season 2 is set to premiere June 10th 2013.’

You can find out more on Facebook or Twitter. [Read more…]