River Gallo and Tim Torre in Pool Boy
The 2021-35th BFI Flare LGBTIQ+Film Festival is totally online this year. Celebrating the best queer cinema from around the world, it will feature 26 feature film and 38 free shorts from 23 countries . One marvels that anything got completed in the last year, so the large variety on offer is proof of the resilience of the film industry.
Pool Boy 2021
‘Pool Boy’(2021) is placed in the ‘Beginning and Endings’ section of the festival. Together with his team and in particular, cinematographer Connor Ellmann, Luke Willis has created a tangible and visually rich love story, seen through fine detail and intimate close-ups, where you can almost feel the breath. There is an awareness of the awakening of senses and the conflict that Austin feels when his ‘other world’ approaches him in the form of Jake.
River Gallo and Tom Torre
River Gallo, (they/them), the Star in name and the role in Pool Boy, were born and raised in New Jersey of Salvadorian heritage. When aged only 12, they were classified as ‘intersex’, offered hormone therapy and even surgery, to insert prosthetic testicles. The result was that they have become activists and outspoken critics of unnecessary cosmetic surgeries performed on children with atypical genitals, who are not old enough to give an informed consent.
River Gallo and Tim Torres
A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Experimental Theatre Wing and the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts MFA programme. River Gallo starred in and co-directed the short film ‘Ponyboi, ‘(2019), with Sadé Clacken Joseph, that premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival. It is significant in that it is the first narrative film created by and starring an out intersex person. It is a queer film about love and self-redemption. River Gallo is also a recipient of the 2019 GLAAD Media Rising Star Award and the 2020 Ryan Murphy HALF initiative for TV Directing. River Gallo is a charismatic and seductive presence on the screen. In ‘Pool Boy’, which is only 10 minutes long, Luke Willis has illustrated the power of attraction and how love can overwhelm a person. Tim Torre plays Austin, a former high school athlete, who finds himself compulsively attracted to the non-binary pool cleaner, Star. It is clearly not the first time Star has been around, as Austin’s typical buddy friend, Jake (Justin Chien) knows him as ‘Paul’, rather than Star.
Luke Willis on the set of The Summer House
Free-lance writer/director Luke Willis has been consistently filming short films since 2013. These include The Summer House (2019). Lifeboat (2017), he is also known for his work on music videos , documentaries, and Gay Chorus Deep South (2019) and Madaran (2016). After a long and successful career as a classical ballet dancer, with the San Francisco Ballet and the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Willis decided to start to turn to making films as a way to tell important stories.
River Gallo
It is always interesting to see how much can be expressed in only a few minutes. In Pool Boy, in only 10 minutes we are drawn into the world of Star, who is totally confident and Austin who is faced with a choice.
BFI Flare LGBTIQ+ Festival will run from the 17th to the 28th March 2021-
Pool Boy 2020
Written & Directed by Luke Willis
Produced by Justine Barker, Julia Epstein-Norris and Luke Willis
Cinematography by Connor Ellmann
Editing by Jenna Neish
Original score by Daniele Truocchio
Cast River Gallo, Tim Torre and Justin Chien
