Boys On Film 21: Beautiful Secret

Reading Gaol, England, 1896. Prisoner C33, starving and thin, unable to wash properly, is a brilliant writer, husband and father of two, once the most beloved artist in Victorian London. His real name is Oscar Wilde.

Four interwoven stories about love and self-acceptance: An eleven year-old boy struggles to keep secret the attraction he feels towards his male cousin. Two former childhood friends reunite and start a relationship that gets complicated due to one of them’s fear of getting caught. A gay long lasting relationship is in jeopardy when a third man comes along. An old family man is obsessed with a young male prostitute and tries to raise the money to afford the experience.

Ricky is a young man who takes care of his sick mother. His father hovers at the edge of the picture, so Ricky provides for himself and his mom through prostitution, running errands, and acting as a caregiver for a blind man. Through the course of the film, Ricky befriends Janey, a young woman he finds beaten by her ex-boyfriend, and Trenn, a mysterious young man in trouble with the law. The three of them navigate a dark and confusing world. It uses many of the actors who have come to constitute the Dar A Luz company, including Tony Torn, Tom Fitzpatrick, Juliana Francis, and Tom Pearl. It will disappoint those who approach it looking for a film analogue of the “faster and louder” aesthetic that critics have used to characterize much of Abdoh’s stage work. The Blind Owl does use a variety of techniques reminiscent of his stage direction, giving it an unusual theatricality.

On Gacchan’s birthday, a wild night in Shinjuku turns into a whirlwind for him and Takayuki, testing their love after a careless mistake and a heated confrontation.

On Christmas Eve, Léa and Juliette, a couple, want to rob a supermarket that Juliette knows is empty of surveillance on this festive evening. But, as much for each of them as for Eric, the vigil who is there after all, nothing will happen as planned. Besides, shortly before leaving him alone, the store manager gave Eric a gun, just in case.

A young engineer on holiday gets involved with a boy who has a strange relationship with the wind. Their close friendship arouses suspicion in the small town. When the boy disappears, the engineer is accused of murdering him.

During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.

Following the tragic death of her teenage son, Manuela travels from Madrid to Barcelona in an attempt to contact the long-estranged father the boy never knew. She reunites with an old friend, an outspoken transgender sex worker, and befriends a troubled actress and a pregnant, HIV-positive nun.

Two childhood friends are recruited for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.

County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.

A man returns home from years on the run to find his wife having died of cancer and his son getting a divorce after his grandson's birth. The once mighty gangster ends up living in a nursing home where he finds the warmth and love of a younger woman. As he tries to break the news of his May-December romance to his son, he finds out that his son is now living with a man claiming to be a "close friend." Three generations of Wu, the grandfather who hates to lose face, the father who thinks love trumps all, and the rebellious grandson, collided as they dealt with love, friendship, and family.

Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend.

When an old friend brings filmmaker Enrique Goded a semi-autobiographical script chronicling their adolescence, Enrique is forced to relive his youth spent at a Catholic boarding school.

A birdwatcher invades a nude queer campground on a remote lake in the New Hampshire wilds. He wears whatever he needs to ensnare the locals in his dark fetish in this nightmarish erotic thriller. Consent has never been more deadly.

On his deathbed, His Majesty Alfredo, King without a crown, is taken back to distant youth memories from the time when he dreamt of becoming a fireman. His encounter with instructor Afonso from the fire brigade, opens a new chapter in the life of the two young men devoted to love and desire, and the will to change the status quo.