While The Men Are Away
Just quietly, for all the blood-shedding tragedy, untold loss and senseless mayhem of WWII, more than a few folks back home didn’t entirely hate the fact that the pause button got hit on the absentee patriarchy. That’s the mischievous nudge-nudge-wink premise behind this not-entirely historical comedy set on an apple farm temporarily run by Frankie (Italian actor Michela De Rossi, Many Saints of Newark). Even though she has to put up with bigoted POW pot-shots while her ‘allegedly’ off-to-war hubby is out of the way, she ensures the girls can play in this saucily sapphic hoot co-starring Phoebe Grainer, Max McKenna and Jana Zvedeniuk.
Stream free On Demand
While The Men Are Away
series • drama
MA15+
series • drama
MA15+
Supernova
If Colin Firth will always be your Mr Darcy and you reckon the real love story in Devil Wears Prada is between Anne Hathaway’s Andy and Stanley Tucci’s adorably cranky Vogue wardrobe guardian Nigel, then it’s entirely likely you’ll ship this bittersweet goodbye that pairs Firth with Tucci as longstanding lovers facing down the too-cruel ravages of early onset dementia. Writer/director Harry Macqueen brings out his stars’ A-game in a low-key campervan-led road trip around the lush green English countryside that will have you tearing through a box of tissues in no time while underlining that sometimes it’s the little things that last forever.
Rūrangi
Elz Carrad announced himself as a glimmering star to watch in this about an Auckland-based trans man returning to the small dairy town he quit ten years ago in an effort to reconnect with family and friends, but this time as his authentic self. Knitting together LGBTQIA+ and Māori communities to stand tall against the colonial developers who want to pave paradise while straightwashing the joint, it’s a heart-warming, rabble-rousing tale about how love, both for one other and yourself, trumps adversity. It’s the kind of show where you’ll have a wee tear while grinning from ear to ear as the gang bands together.
Stream free On Demand
Rurangi
series • drama • Maori
M
series • drama • Maori
M
Fragrance Of The First Flower
For so many, Taiwan becoming the first Asian nation to legalise marriage equality in 2019 was a joyous occasion, but this delicately nuanced series asks, “What if it came just a teeny bit too late for some?” That’s the case for Yi Ming (Zaizai Lin), who’s thrust back into the path of her former lover Ting Ting (Lyan Cheng) when they both rock up, quite by accident, at a same-sex wedding. Torn between the love they once shared and the family she has built with her husband and kids, Yi Ming finds herself unmoored. Dancing nimbly between the height of their youthful passion and their new reality, it asks if what was once fully entwined ever truly unravels?
Iggy & Ace
While The Men Are Away co-creator has excellent form in delivering riotously funny, subtly sharp and often raunchy comedy, including this button-pushingly brilliant show that follows the fall-out when one half of infamously out-of-control queer besties decides to get off the grog leaving the other blindsided in their belligerent messiness. Troppo star Sara West aces it as Iggy, the one left behind, while Josh Virgona’s Ace sobers up and maybe moves on without his partner in boxed wine crimes. Not that he suddenly has his shit together in a show that gloriously rakes over the trash of our twenties and Australia’s drinking culture while reinstating the importance of mates.
Stream free On Demand
Iggy & Ace
series • comedy
MA15+
series • comedy
MA15+
End Of The Century
One of the most radiant queer films of recent years, Argentinian filmmaker Lucio Castro’s dreamy puzzle box will wind its way into your head and heart and never let you go. Juan Barberini plays Ocho, a drifting soul holidaying alone in Barcelona who spontaneously hooks up with local lad Javi (Ramon Pujol), whom he first spots on the beach. But what at first plays out like a Weekend whirlwind is actually a much more mercurial piece that plays with memory, time and place to reckon with paths not taken and the strings of fate that tie us together. You will never look at a KISS T-shirt quite the same way again, and we guarantee you’ll be spinning a certain A Flock of Seagulls track for the rest of eternity.
Cocoon
Joining a rich tradition of summer love stories, German writer/director Leonie Krippendorff’s Berlin-set sophomore feature thrums with the hum of long sunny days, casting the remarkable Lena Urzendowsky as a dorkily sweet teenager edging into adulthood on the coattails of her cool older sister (Lena Klenke) and her best mate (Elina Vildanova). But it’s a chance meeting with Romy (Jella Haase) at school, just as her first period arrives for all to see, that sets her on a new path through pool plunges and sweaty rooftop reveries. Her gradual transformation, subtler than that undergone by the caterpillars she keeps in jars, is beautiful to behold, as is the Kreuzberg neighbourhood in full summer flourish.
Spa Night
Fire Island director Andrew Ahn’s debut feature is a much subtler film that relishes loaded silences and stolen glances. Casting a soulful Joe Seo as David, a buttoned-up teen from Los Angeles’ Koreatown, he lands a gig at a local spa to try and earn some extra cash to help out his financially struggling, religiously fervent immigrant parents. Despite his so-so grades, they have big hopes for his future, with this steamy sanctuary offering some respite from their expectations. It’s also a safe place where, when tasked with making sure no men get hot for each other, the door to that unfamiliar possibility is gradually eased open for him. Sublime.
