Humans have an expiration date, so we need to burn as bright as Hell before we’re dragged there. Kiss your partner passionately, travel gawd’s gay earth intrepidly, and honor every damn feeling that grips your heart.
The LGBTQ’mmunity is more aware of our mortality than most sectors of society. We have survived millennia of hostility and ignorance, so we regard time with a sense of skeptical wonder. Our voraciousness for viscerality stems from the ominous feeling that every stolen moment could be our last.
This is the thematic landscape of a new film entitled Of an Age, written and directed by Goran Stolevski.
“I wanted to capture the loneliness I had as a gay kid in the 1990s, before technology made it easier to connect with people,” the filmmaker tells HuffPost.
The narrative swirls around a tumultuously titillating 24-hour period set in a queer yesteryear. Kol meets Adam the day before they must part indefinitely, so they make up for soon-to-be-lost time by falling rapidly and ravenously in love.
“The rush of romance is one thing,” Stolevski continues, “but I was looking at it from the perspective of someone older with a different life experience. What you think love is when you’re younger is sweet, but it can also lead to a lot of trouble later on. I wanted to investigate it in that way without minimizing the rush.”
Our same-sex protagonists reunite a decade later and as their worlds collide, their defenses crumble. They are rocked by the reminiscences that linger in their souls, eternally drawing them back to the glorious spark that ignited their relationship.
“The intensity of that connection had an electricity, a poignancy and a sexiness to it that, I think, is specific to the queer experience.”
Of an Age is simultaneously timely and timeless. It evokes a simpler era only to unleash the complexities that confound us forever. We are born to die. We are doomed by joy. We come out of the closet and into a world that hates us, simply because we love.
But that will never diminish our desire. Stay gay, fellow dreamers.
Image: Of An Age Films Pty Ltd
Last modified: March 16, 2023