Winner of the “Emerging Visions” Audience Award at SXSW Film Festival 2011

A one-night stand that becomes something more - an unconventional love story between two young men trying to make sense of their lives. On a Friday night after hanging out with his straight mates, Russell heads out to a nightclub, alone and on the pull. Just before closing time he picks up Glen. And so begins a weekend – in bars and in bedrooms, getting drunk and taking drugs, telling stories and having sex - that will resonate throughout their lives.

WEEKEND is releasing nationally on 26 January 2012

• Showing at: ACT Dendy Canberra City — 1st March
• Showing at: NSW Dendy Newtown Palace Verona
• Showing at: VIC Cinema Nova
• Showing at: QLD Palace Barracks
• Showing at: SA Palace Nova Eastend
• Showing at :WA Luna
• Check online or your local paper for viewing times.

Review: The greatest story ever told (about gay men, that is)

A pretty remarkable movie anyway you look at it but Andrew Haigh's Weekend (UK) also might be the greatest film about gay men ever made," tweeted American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis last week on 3 October. The interest in Weekend had begun to supernova before Ellis added to the bandwagon of stellar reviews that emerged when the film premiered at the South by South West Film Festival in March, and accompanied the US release of the romantic drama at the start of October.

It's easy to see why Weekend has made such a strong impact. Haigh's picture is one of the few movies that capture modern attitudes to sex without falling into the cliches that come with the cinematic tendency to frame morals into a pseudo-religious spectrum of love, fidelity and marriage. This applies as much to films about heterosexual romances as to gay ones.

Russell, played by Tom Cullen, is a shy lifeguard, a private individual who shies away from making his homosexuality overt. We first see him go to a dinner party with some straight pals before heading out to a gay bar. It's here that he meets boisterous Glen, played by Chris New. We don't see what follows but the next morning they wake up and Glen reveals he's creating an art project in which he interviews gay men about "coming out".

Glen's free-love radicalism is at the opposite end to Russell's conservatism and the tape recorder acts as a conduit through which deeper discussions about sexuality can take place.

More at: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films

Review: "Weekend" is a Gay Relationship Drama Worth Waiting For

At some point in almost every fine artist's career, he or she will paint a bowl of fruit. Most of those paintings will be mediocre at best, but some will be extraordinary. Why? It all comes down to execution, of course.

A story where two strangers meet and develop a love affair over the course of a single weekend? This is the "bowl of fruit" of movie plots. It's been done so many times that there's nothing particularly novel or gimmicky about the story itself that will draw viewers to the movie: whether the film-going experience is satisfying will ultimately depend entirely on execution.

Fortunately, in the case of the new UK movie Weekend, having its debut this week at the South by Southwest Film Festival, the execution is terrific.

Shy, self-conscious Russell has a modest, unassuming life in Nottingham, England; his mostly straight friends don't ask about his life as a gay man, and he doesn't tell. One Friday night, after spending time with them, he visits a gay bar where he meets a brash, outspoken artist named Glen. What starts out as a drunken and drug-fueled one-night stand, soon becomes something more as they're clearly drawn to each other over the course of that single weekend, even as they resent the assumptions that each makes about the other's life choices.

Soon we learn something that makes both characters think they can't possibly have much of a future together. "I don't do boyfriends," Glen says, and he later adds, "I don't do goodbyes."

But neither Russell nor Glen is exactly what he seemed at first glance — or maybe the presence of the other man has changed him: suddenly, Russell has much more confidence, while Glen doesn't have all the answers. So how do you even say goodbye (or not) to someone who has helped you see the world, and yourself, in an entirely new light?

Read More at: http://www.afterelton.com/movies/2011/03/review-weekend