WATCH: Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna team up for another transgressive queer drama

Before there was challenger‘ Art & Patrick, there were Julio & Tenoch, the homoerotic friendship at the center Y Tu Mama Tambiéncreated by IRL friends Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna.

Since the film’s premiere in 2001, its stars have continued to be one of pop culture’s most charming and enduring bromances, even returning to the big screen this year for the Spanish-language Hulu series La MaquinaExploring the nature of masculinity in the muscular world of boxing.

But it’s the BFFs’ next collaboration that we’re particularly excited about, as Bernal and Luna are behind the camera and producing Thesis about domesticationa transgressive queer/trans drama celebrating its world premiere this week.

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The film is an adaptation of an upcoming novel of the same name by groundbreaking trans multi-performer Camila Sosa Villada, who – in a meta move – appears herself as a successful trans actress at the peak of her career.

Amid all the premieres and red carpet paparazzi, our protagonist surprises even herself when she finds love with a disturbingly handsome Mexican lawyer (Sense8 And Ozarkis Alfonso Herrera), who blows her away – and apparently likes to indulge her nastiest desires.

As they build a life together, the two eventually marry, build a home, and even begin discussing the possibility of adopting a child. Suddenly she is confronted with the reality of monogamy and motherhood – ideas she never thought possible as a trans woman.

But the more she realizes that her life conforms to these traditional, heteronormative values, the more she thinks about her troubled, yet uninhibited and independent past. The struggle between the happiness of freedom and domestic bliss comes to a head when the couple pays a visit to their hometown in rural Argentina.

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Thesis about domestication reunites Sosa Villada with filmmaker Javier van de Couter, who previously directed her in his first feature film. Miafrom 2011.

“Doing the adaptation with Camila was a privilege,” says van de Couter diversity in an exclusive interview, “mainly because in this transition from literature to film, we never forget that this is a story made up by a trans person to talk about another trans person, so authentic and that is also worrying for the cinema.”

By making a film that combines trauma with joy and celebration and questions the barometers of success from a trans and queer perspective, the director recognizes how rare – and therefore provocative – Sosa Villada’s story could be.

“What is important is that there is a diverse cinema that talks about trans people without always seeing them as compassionate, scandalous, marginal,” van de Couter continues. “We need a cinema that shows these lives honestly. When a transgender person steps in front of a camera, it immediately creates a hypnotic, poetic and unique effect on the viewer, which fills me with joy every time it happens.”

Bernal and Luna came on board through their joint production company La Corriente del Golfo and will use their combined international star power to ensure that this important film can be seen by audiences around the world.

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Thesis about domestication will have its world premiere next Saturday, October 19th at the Chicago International Film Festival before heading to the Morelia Film Festival in Mexico from October 18th to 27th.

Ahead of its debut, check out the film’s stirring first trailer below:

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