Gay Celluloid on FIT

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a film by Rikki Beadle-Blair.

2010 | 108 mins | UK.

a vibrant mix of sexual home truths and street dance.

Dave says:

Every once in a while along comes a film that in saying it like it is, gives encouragement and inspiration to others to proudly be their sexual self and this thankfully, is one such occasion. Then again, is that of any surprise when this heartfelt message of sexual acceptance was made with the support of Stonewall UK. It tells the story of six teenagers, each of whom has fallen foul of the school system and are now forced to seek educational redemption by participating in a dance and drama class with a difference. That difference being Loris (Rikki Beadle-Blair); the new teaching jock on the block who is as open with his homosexuality, as he is on hand to support his pupils; a mixed group of troubled teens who have far more in common with each other, than what they may at first realize.

And here there's no need to guess that the common factor is one of sexuality; albeit sexuality with a twist in its tale. Take Lee (Lydia Toumazou) for example. Your stereotypical butch dyke; only she's straight and the best friend of Karmel (Sasha Frost), namely a girl into make-up, clothes and all that's pretty, including girls. Then there's Isaac (Jay Brown), who along with his best friend Ryan (Stephen Hoo) is homophobic to the core, having made the life of school geek Tegs (Duncan MacInnes) hell on earth. Yet who's actually gay or straight here? Tegs' best friend Jordan (Ludvig Bonin) has an idea, but then this budding footballer has other things on his mind, having set his sights on a career in the so-called beautiful game.

In short, this is a film in which writer, director and star of the show Rikki Beadle-Blair has gone out of his way to showcase the sparkling sexual diversity that humanity has to offer. It's a work that brilliantly plays on its performing arts scenario to allow for a series of pertinent questions to flow, including the key ones of: am I gay? and what if my best friend is gay? Along the way it intercuts the narrative with such major issues as religion and homosexuality, sport and homophobia, let alone the differing parental attitudes to gay blood in the family.

That the talented young cast play their roles with added poignancy should arrive as no surprise, given of a number of them had already performed in front of 20,000 plus people during the three winters that the original stage play / workshop toured the UK; at theatres, youth clubs and critically at schools. Yet that does not diminish their remarkably realistic turns here, even if Jay Brown had the unenviable task of portraying the homophobic bully of the piece, albeit one that is shown the error of his ways courtesy of seven episodic chapters that detail the life stories and thereby the very sexuality of the principal characters.

Notably reworked for its cinematic outing, along the way taking in many of the players previously seen in Beadle-Blair's spirited KickOff, this enlightening work equally contains a series of direct-to-camera monologues, that by way of a support group, emotionally cut straight to the hearts and minds of the gay and lesbian teens of today. The result is a vibrant mix of sexual home truths and street dance that is as entertaining, as it is informative. Simply wicked.

›› available on DVD from Amazon.

›› check out the Official Trailer on YouTube.

›› revised: Friday, 30th October, 2020.

Gay Visibility - overt.
Nudity - from the waist up.
Overall - file under ... 5 stars.

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archive reference #317 - revised

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