a short film by Daniel Falcone
2005 | 19 mins | US
Bobby Steggert .... Otter
Damon Cardasis .... Darby
Rachel Frances Shaw .... Amber
Matt Walker .... Leon
Night Swimming
a coming out tale that charts the
diverging sexual identities
of two best friends
Screened in Great Britain as part of the
20th London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
- 2006
AWARDS
Long Island Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
Winner Jury Award - Best
Male Short Film
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In their last summer before college, best friends Otter and Darby head off to New York City to
see their favourite band The Lunachicks perform, that is if Darby and girlfriend Amber
can be separated from each other, overt displays of love that Otter is not
comfortable with - but why?
Well in this well-executed work we are about to find out, given a short cut of the disastrous
kind sees their car breakdown, forcing the boys to spend the night together in the middle of
the woods and along the way, engage in a spot of naked night swimming that afterwards prompts
Darby to question the way Otter's been eyeing up his girl. Trouble is, it's not Amber he's
been watching, a silent response from Otter that signals the true object of his affection
and a surprise return gesture of the penile stimulation kind, as Darby extends the
hand of friendship to his best friend! Only as dawn breaks, can the events of
the night before, be easily forgotten in the light of the morning after?
Yes you're guessed it. For this is yet another variant of the coming out scenario and
inparticular the one in which two close friends come to realise that their sexual orientation
lies in opposite directions. True we have seen this before and here the films FORGIVE &
FORGET, KRÁMPACK and the festival favourite that was SUMMER STORM immediately
spring to mind. But that said, this short still manages to push all
the right buttons in depicting adolescent sexual awakening.
Then again, it suffers the fate of many a short film, namely a rushed ending, having to sum
up the consequences of homosexual desire within minutes after the act cinematically took
place. That said and with a spoiler warning firmly in place, writer and director Daniel Falcone
embeds his Columbia Graduate Film School piece with a series of directorial clues as to the
outcome of the pair. And with a soundtrack featuring The Lunachicks' DON'T WANT YOU, coupled
with Darbys' desire to now live alone having previous talked of getting a place together,
it doesn't take Hercule Poirot to figure out that whilst their friendship
may continue, things will never be the same again.
The result is a tale of the diverging sexual identities between two young men, one greatly aided
by the natural performances from leads Bobby Steggert as Otter and Damon Cardasis as Darby.
Yet the fact that this work yearns for another reel of footage, having been based on the
directors' own coming out experience, is not so much indicative of the conclusion,
but of us wanting to see more. And surely that is a sign of a good film short!
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