UPON HER LIPS: FRENCH KISS - Short Film Collection
- Ben Turner
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
French Kiss is the new instalment in NQV Media’s short film collection Upon Her Lips continuing their anthology of gay shorts from around the world. This collection has gathered four diverse films all hailing from France. Take a look at each of them below.
ONE ANOTHER (France)
Starring: Tehani Amant, Camille Roux
Director: Camille Roux
In Pigalle, Elma spots a beautiful young woman leaving a strip club. Impulsively she decides to follow her and, striking up a friendship, she begins to worm her way into her life. As the stripper believes to be a friendship, Elma must decide just how far she wants to take stalking this girl when her lust for something more is clearly not returned. A dark short about desire and secrecy, this is a complex character portrait performed with real nuance of a woman whose morals we can’t help but question. With the entire film taking place after dark, this is a story of a relationship that exists solely in the shadows that Elma cannot risk being shown for what it is.
RED PANDA TEMPTATION (France)
Starring: Sarah Stern, Alexandra Roth, Allison Chassagne
Director: Haïga Jappain
Anna is thirty-five and ready for a baby with her partner, Marie. When she learns that she is in the early stages of menopause, she launches into a race against time to get pregnant. Doing whatever she can to make the stars align in her favour, her relationship begins to suffer when Marie believes that her girlfriend is no longer discerning over how it happens. A film about balancing desperation with dignity, this episodic drama spread across several months pulls the focus onto whether a baby or a partner is the most important thing of all. A moving short full of big questions, the whole piece is underpinned by a stirring central performance.
BREAKING THROUGH (France)
Starring: Camille Moutawakil, Salomé Richard, Océane Court-Mallaroni, Adam Hafsia, Rabah Loucif
Director: Siham Bel
Safia has kept the secret of her sexuality from her family ever since she left her childhood home in Corsica. Returning for a family party, she finally tells her father and doesn’t get the reaction she had hoped for. Over the resulting days, she wanders the island, encountering strangers and trying to find solace or an outlet for her rage. A character portrait that prefers to show the effects rather than the event, this is a drama that tries to unlock the complexity of familial love.
LOVE SEA (France)
Starring: Mathilde Dupont-Corbrand, Louison Bejaoui, Éva Bouet
Director: Héléna Klotz
Seventeen year-old Jeanne decides to go and visit the seaside one last time at the end of the summer holidays with her sister. Jumping on a bus, they arrive at the beach to realise they’re sharing it with a group of surfers, one of whom is a stunning young woman that she is instantly enamoured with. Told mostly through longing looks across the windswept sand, this is a very slow observational romance that captures that faint flutter of attraction. Wistful, calm and atmospheric, this is a subtle film that daintily finds beauty amid the driftwood.
French Kiss is a broad compilation about young women in turning points in their lives. At times moving, disturbing, life-affirming and even upsetting, this is a wide/ranging collection with each short significantly different from each other. While all are strong films, it is One Another that is easily the collection’s strongest.
UK Release: Out to watch on VOD on June 23rd, released by NQV Media.
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