''Dirty'' is a 2020 short

LGBT LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...

coming-of-age Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can b ...

romantic drama Romance films involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion (emotion), passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typically their ...

film, written and directed by

Matthew Puccini Matthew Puccini (born ) is an American filmmaker. He is known for his short films that deal with LGBT film, LGBT-related subject matters. These include ''The Mess He Made'' (2017), ''Marquise'' (2018), ''Dirty (2020 film), Dirty'' (2020) and ''La ...

. It premiered at the

2020 Sundance Film Festival The 2020 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 23 to February 2, 2020. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 4, 2019. The opening night film was '' Miss Americana'' directed by Lana Wilson and produced by Morg ...

, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Film. The film made its online premiere through a virtual screening by

SXSW South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

, as the festival was cancelled as a result of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. Nevertheless, the festival still awarded the film with a Special Jury Award for the performances of its lead actors, Morgan Sullivan and Manny Dunn. It then went on to play at

BFI Flare BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival, formerly known as the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (LLGFF), is the biggest LGBTIQ+ film festival in Europe. It takes place every spring in London, England. Organised and run by the British Film In ...

, Outfest Fusion, Atlanta Film Festival and the

Palm Springs International ShortFest The Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films (a.k.a. Palm Springs International ShortFest) held annually in Palm Springs, California is the largest film festival for short films in the United States. The Palm Springs International Festi ...

; at the latter it was nominated for Best LGBTQ+ Short. In October 2020, the film's streaming rights were acquired by

The Criterion Channel The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of arthouse film distributor ...

Premise

Marco cuts class to spend the afternoon with his boyfriend, Graham. Things do not go as planned. According to Puccini, this film and his previous short, ''

Lavender ''Lavandula'' (common name lavender) is a genus of 47 known species of perennial flowering plants in the sage family, Lamiaceae. It is native plant, native to the Old World, primarily found across the drier, warmer regions of the Mediterranean ...

'' (2019), are personal to him, saying: "I’m grateful for both films for different reasons and they are all part of one period of my life — exploring these ideas of intimacy and loneliness and queer people seeking connection. In some ways they’re almost two attempts to answer the same question."

Cast

* Morgan Sullivan as Marco * Manny Dunn as Graham * Sean Patrick Higgins as Mr. Flanangan Ethan River Cohen, Chelsea Eason, Cherish Hearts, Ryan Knight, Octavia Kohner, Maurice Nelson, Zac Porter, Olivia Sulkowicz, Melissa Topnas, Arianna Wellmoney and Jude Young appear as students during the opening scenes.

Accolades

Film festival awards

References

External links

*
''Dirty''
a
Matthew Puccini's website
2020 films 2020 romantic drama films 2020 short films 2020 LGBTQ-related films LGBTQ-related coming-of-age drama films Gay-related films American drama short films Films directed by Matthew Puccini 2020s English-language films 2020s American films American LGBTQ-related short films English-language drama short films English-language romantic drama films {{LGBT-film-stub