Based on the acclaimed play, Drown is a hard-hitting drama set against the iconic backdrop of Sydney’s Beaches. Len is a Surf Lifesaving champion, a legend in the cloistered surf club just like his father. But when the younger, faster, fitter Phil arrives at the club, Len’s legendary status starts to crumble. Then Len discovers that Phil is gay. Over the summer season, Len starts to form unexpected, confusing feelings for Phil. It’s something Len can’t accept and after the annual awards dinner, Len explodes. He finds Phil in the clubhouse locker room and violently attacks him. But to Len’s surprise, Phil remains loyal to the mateship pack and refuses to rat on Len about the beating. Len stays in the Club and is free to compete in the annual Surf Lifesaving completion; a competition Len has won five times but Phil wins and Len’s defeat is final. Arriving back at the beach where Phil claimed his victory the day before, Len sets upon Phil. And in a series of humiliating acts, Len finally comes face to face with a fundamental question, can he accept the truth about his sexuality and identity or will he succumb to complete oblivion?

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If you’ve ever found yourself on the outside looking in, then you are probably familiar with the coping strategy of acquiring the identity of a movie character in order to gain legibility within the situation. The central character of Jenni Olson’s mesmerizing essay film is a gender dysphoric, Midwestern tomboy who is drawn to borrowing masculine personas from Hollywood characters as a mode of understanding how to deal with being drawn to unavailable women. A fascinating and unlikely reinvention story, The Royal Road simultaneously explores cinematic spiritual channeling, the conquest and colonization of Mexico and the American Southwest, fading historical Californian urban landscapes, and the passions found in butch identity to achieve an achingly beautiful and poetic defense of remembering. Probing roads from El Camino Real, to the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, to the road right outside the front door, Olson crafts a deeply intelligent and transcending observation of the human condition that reaches for redemption in the embrace of history, nostalgia, mindfulness, and sheer beauty. If you give yourself over to it, it will crack you wide open.

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Two estranged gay brothers attempt to make amends in Wade Gasque’s charming small-town drama. Set against the sun-kissed fields of Central California, and anchored by strong performances from Mark Strano and pornstar-turned-leading man Frankie Valenti (aka Johnny Hazzard), TIGER ORANGE pits two diametric opposites against each other – the closeted introvert versus the out-and-proud hunk. The result is a blunt, playful meditation on queer sibling rivalry and the childhood bonds that force us together.

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