Forces is a short film that captures the intense bromance between a straight military guy and a gay football player. Friends since childhood, the boundaries of their relationship are forged and tested.
A Powerful & Beautiful Bromance
I like to champion exceptional new talent and director Dominic Poliquin is just that. He’s masterfully created a short film that captures the combustible friction of a lifelong bromance between straight and gay best friends on the banks of a creek where their backyards meet.
Forces won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Film at its premiere at the Image+Nation Film Festival in Montreal, Canada. Forces is currently on the festival circuit. It will be released in September 2017 on digital platforms and with select broadcast partners.
‘‘This film perfects the short narrative form and it is obvious in every moment and in every shot that it was lovely crafted.’’
Roisín NicOireachtaigh, Member of Jury, Image + Nation Film Festival 2016
Dominic Poliquin directs this captivating short film which crackles with emotional turbulence and sexual tension. Actors Nicola Tomassini and Benoit Gauvin effortlessly capture the sacred balance in a bromance.
Forces Director Statement – Dominic Poliquin
Tell us about your new project FORCES and what message you would like to communicate to young filmmakers and to the LGBTQ community.
Where to start? I am generally bored and tired of seeing Queer characters dying at the end of Oscar winning movies. I could list endless films like Philadelphia, Boys Don’t Cry, Brokeback Mountain, Milk, The Hours and even Black Swan, in which both male and female LGBTQ characters meet disastrous endings, almost like a ‘formula to kill off the queer’ to pass a message to the world.
I am not saying they are not great films, but the all too familiar ‘let’s kill them off” recipe has become a self identification problem for those who don’t fit into what society calls the norm.
In FORCES, we follows the life of two young men: a straight soldier that is being deployed to Afghanistan who is overly sensitive and his openly gay childhood friend who recently got kicked off his football team, not for his sexual orientation, but rather for excessive violent behavior.
My goal for my short was to avoid some clichés and stereotypes. The straight character in my film is a bit like the damsel in distress and the gay character gets to play the part of the savior.
My approach to film making is to not make a big deal about the sexuality of my gay characters. Masculinity and friendship are the main themes at play. The spheres of sports and the military are two iconic institutions that I wanted to explore because they heavily influence male culture, education and up-bringing.
Even if some ‘out ’ athletes like Brian Sims and Gareth Thomas were important inspirational figures for me, I also used my over ten years of experience working at the military base of Saint-Jean-Sur-Richelieu where I’ve befriended several straight military, as research, much like an artist doing field work studies for his Masters in film production.
Overall the message I want viewers and future filmmakers to take away from FORCES, is that sensitivity in men is strength, a force to be reckoned with and it is certainly not a weakness.