GAYLETTER

The short film is a truly glorious sub-genre of cinema. It’s like the visual equivalent of bite-sized candy, or overpriced sliders from Shake Shack: when done right, they’re exquisite, quick, but still meaty enough to totally satisfy. I took it upon myself to trawl the Internet for five new short films focusing on LGBT characters, because the only thing better than your everyday, run-of-the-mill short is one that’s homo-flavored, obviously.

These particular shorts cover a wide spectrum of topics (threesomes, meeting the parents, being in the closet, etc.) and come from all over the world (Germany, the Netherlands, etc.). So if you’ve been craving some thought-provoking LGBT work from a new crop of up-and-coming directors, then you’ve definitely come to the right spot.

Some of them are subtitled, some of them are NSFW and all of them are under 25 minutes:

#1. Heile Gänsje, dir. Matt Lambert

Set in a hazy, gorgeously-filmed Berlin, this slightly-NSFW short for Dazed Digital/Channel 4 follows a strikingly pretty, buzzcut teen as he cavorts Skins-like around gardens and bars with his friends, smoking and boozing until he ends up making out with his best friend. From there on out everything gets a little cockeyed and neon-colored. Best watched full-screen with the sound all the way up.

#2. Natives, dir. Jeremy Hersh

An official selection at a number of big name film festivals (SXSW, Outfest) and winner of Best Short at the Seattle LGBT Film Festival, Natives details a young woman bringing her girlfriend home to meet the parents for a weekend. It’s a simple set-up, but the payoff is huge: questions of both cultural and sexual authenticity are explored as things get more and more uncomfortable for the couple. This unique, poignant, and beautifully-acted 20-minute short is bound to strike a chord.

#3. Je suis une poignée de mains, dir. Guillaume Chep

This super-short (just over 2 minutes long), a film en competition in Festival Nikon, captures a chance meeting between two French students that goes strangely (and beautifully) clairvoyant. No subtitles available for this one, but most of it is soundtracked to music anyway, and it’s not like you ever really had a problem listening to two cute boys speak in French to each other in the first place, did you?

Watch it here.

#4. Jackpot, dir. Adam Baran

This comedy, set in 1994, details what was probably a very common adolescent struggle in the pre-Internet era: getting your hands on smutty magazines while both closeted and underage. What begins as a jokey satire on gay porn tropes, though, quickly turns into a statement on confronting what scares you the most while owning your own identity in the process.

#5. Wastelands, dir. Marco van Bergen

Wastelands is a mostly silent film that takes place in a gorgeous, dreamlike Dutch landscape. The plot follows a moody, young protagonist as he lusts silently after a friend, but as soon as it seems like things are starting to look up during an idyllic camping trip, everything just gets more complicated. Being young and in the closet never looked more stunningly angsty.