On Tuesday, I’m offering The Short Take — a free, one-time-only live workshop I’ve run once before — but I’m not sure I’ll ever run it again.

We’ll be watching a 22-minute fiction-documentary hybrid short from 2017— the year Britain marked the 50th anniversary of decriminalizing homosexuality. The BFI commissioned this film, along with several others, to look back on that history.

The film is thought-provoking and layered — and invites you to really look at how queer history is told, and who gets to tell it.

I saw it in 2017, and I still think about it.

Like a lot of people, I cobbled together my sense of queer history through film, theatre, TV, and literature — through what felt like whispers and secrets.

This was the first film I saw that was about that process: the gaps, the erasures, the searching.

It made queer history feel not like something behind us, but something we’re still uncovering.

Josh O’Connor stars in it — before Challengers, La Chimera, or even The Crown. I interviewed him at Sundance in 2017 for God's Own Country, so I was already deep in his filmography when I came across this short.

He’s not the reason I still think about this short eight years later — but he was the reason I found it.

And sometimes, that’s how great films find you.

Even though The Long Take focuses on fiction features, I chose this short as a preview because it poses one of the same central questions as the films we'll explore there:

How has — or hasn’t — the world changed for queer people in the last 70 years?

Here’s what we’ll do:

🎬 Watch the film together, start to finish
🔁 Rewatch key scenes in small segments
🧠 Dig into how the film’s form shapes both its politics and how it makes us feel

If you’ve been curious about The Long Take — the four-month program I’m building for deep film conversations, this time on queer cinema — this is your sneak peek.

And if you just want to sink into a sharp, surprising short film with a room full of curious people — this is a one-time event, and you’re warmly welcome.

What past attendees found valuable:

You’ll leave The Short Take with:

✨ Some new tools for watching films more deeply

✨ A deeper sense of what queer cinema can offer

✨ A preview of what we’ll be doing inside The Long Take

📅 When: Tuesday, October 29 — live at 2 PM ET

(That’s 11 AM PT, 6 PM UK, 7 PM in most of Europe)

👉 Claim your FREE spot for The Short Take

The session will run ~90 minutes.

There won’t be a replay — it’s one of those “you had to be there” kind of things.

Hope to see you there,
Alex

P.S. Worried you won’t have anything to contribute? You don’t need any expertise — just come open and curious.

“I was nervous about stepping in and discussing things that I didn't know much about. In the end, the atmosphere was accepting and welcoming, so I felt free to join in quite a bit.” — Sarah again