Frank's Cock (1993)

Directed by

Mike Hoolboom

Genre

LGBTQ-related film

Country

Canada

Runtime

8 min

Rating

5.2 of 10 from 5 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A man speaks about his long relationship with his partner Frank. Frank has AIDS and the narrator fears losing him. The short film uses split-screen images to show the narrator's memories and feelings.

intimatecontemplativemelancholicvisually fragmentedpersonalrawpoignantmeditative

What happens

Frank's Cock is a 1993 Canadian short film written and directed by Mike Hoolboom. The eight-minute production stars Callum Keith Rennie as an unnamed narrator who discusses his relationship with his partner, Frank. The two met while the narrator was a teenager and spent nearly ten years together. Frank has since been diagnosed with AIDS, and the narrator fears his death. The story was based on the experience of one of Hoolboom's friends at People With AIDS, which Hoolboom adapted after receiving a commission to create a short film about breaking up. Shot on a low budget, the work is shown in a split-screen format with interspersed scenes from popular culture, gay pornography, and human embryo formation; this format is meant to symbolise the "fragmentation of the body" experienced by AIDS sufferers. Produced by Alex Mackenzie, Frank's Cock was critically acclaimed and won several awards, including the NFB–John Spotton Award for best Canadian short film at the 1994 Toronto International Film Festival. The script has been republished several times and has inspired a short on LGBTQ issues in Canada's native community. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• Silverlake Life: The View from Here (1993)
• Letters from Home (1996)
• The Sex of the Stars (1993)
• Montreal Main (1974)
• Love and Human Remains (1993)
• Boys Life 2 (1997)
• The Broadcast Tapes of Dr. Peter (1993)
• Cap Tourmente (1993)