PREVIEW:Gay web film series Distancing

Distancing is a British gay-themed comedy drama web series by playwright James McDermott. And directed by Leon Lopez, whose credits include episodes of Hollyoaks and Emmerdale.

The series stars Kane Surry, recently seen in the achingly beautiful gay love triangle play Afterglow, and in the gay film collection Boys On Film 20 – both  reviewed here by Gscene .

It also stars Elliot Hadley – recently onstage in both Coming Clean and 5 Guys Chillin’ .The story concerns Adam ( Surry) who works on a supermarket fish counter in London during lockdown and his boyfriend Jake (Hadley) who’s stuck in Italy visiting his ex bf when flights are suspended.

The crew met as part of Danusia Samal’s Virtual Collaborators, which teams up people to make short digital content in lockdown. They were tasked to create a film in a week ; Digital Detox was the result – the forerunner of Distancing. Lopez told Gscene: “ It’s been inspiring to see what  we can create under strict conditions. We’ve made friends in a time when the world feels it’s wrong to connect with others”.

Filmed on smartphones and set on messaging video apps, each episode captures Adam’s and Jake’s video chats. Lopez directs each episode on Zoom with the actors who film on their phones and then send to Lopez to edit.

The six weekly episodes are distributed free via YouTube through Lopez’s production company Brown Boy productions .

Watch out for my review coming soon !

You can see another LGBTQ+ lockdown inspired film by the same director Leon Lopez from Brown Boy Productions here: ‘Hello Google’