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21st Century Cinema

Will-o’-the-Wisp

1h 7m

Directed by João Pedro Rodrigues • 2022 • France, Portugal
Starring Mauro Costa, André Cabral, Joel Branco

A rapturously queer, ecologically minded, antiroyalist musical fantasia, WILL-O’-THE-WISP finds the ever-audacious João Pedro Rodrigues (The Ornithologist) at his most playfully and pleasurably subversive. It’s the year 2069 (nice), and, on his deathbed, his royal highness Alfredo (Joel Branco/Mauro Costa), king without a crown, is taken back to his distant youth via euphorically erotic memories of his time as a fireman. Dismayed by the ever-more-frequent forest fires caused by climate change, the young king-to-be joins a brigade of blaze-extinguishing beefcakes with a penchant for sexy art-historical role-play. An encounter with veteran firefighter Afonso (André Cabral) opens a new chapter in the lives of the two young men, igniting both burning desire and a determination to change the status quo.

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