Browse Movies : Next 90 Days : Rating Not Available : Drama : S

Trans man Leo’s (Bobbi Salvör Menuez) life is a jumble of auditions, acting classes, barista jobs, and situationships, all of which he hopes will amount to more. Unexpectedly, Leo’s college best friend, cisgender and straight Eleanor (Marianne Rendón), calls Leo announcing that she’ll be driving through NYC, and offers to pick him up for an impromptu trip upstate. They embark on the weekend getaway, marking their first time spent together since Leo began transitioning. Reunited with new gender dynamics between them, and uncovering problems lurking behind Eleanor’s “well-meaning” façade, Leo and Eleanor navigate how their old feelings towards one another exist within this new context, forcing them both to confront buried secrets and emotions. A modern twist on the buddy comedy from a queer and trans perspective, Noah Schamus’ debut feature SUMMER SOLSTICE is a celebration of friendship, resilience, and coming of age again.

The summer of 1990 is hot in the countryside of Thuringia, in former East Germany. Maria is about to turn 19, lives with her boyfriend, Johannes, on his parents’ farm, and would rather lose herself in books than focus on graduating. With German reunification, there is a sense of a new era dawning as Maria bumps into Henner, the farmer next door. One touch is all it takes to ignite an all-consuming passion between Maria and the headstrong, charismatic man twice her age. In an atmosphere buzzing with possibilities, love is born: a secret passion full of longing and desire that devours everything in its path.

Follows Max, a 25-year-old freelance writer and aspiring novelist who seems well on his way to success in London’s cultural spheres. Yet by night, he finds a different kind of exhilaration as a sex worker with the pseudonym Sebastian, meeting men via an escorting platform. Max uses his experiences as Sebastian to fuel his stories and the worthy debut novel that he has been longing to write, finally seems within reach. As Max increasingly struggles to remain in control of a delicately balanced double-life, he must reckon with whether Sebastian is merely a writer’s tool in their quest for the ultimate sense of first-hand authenticity — or whether something more is at stake.