Draft:Starfuckers (short film)

Starfuckers is a 2022 drama short film directed by Antonio Marziale. It stars and was written by the director and his co-star, Cole Doman.

Plot
An ostensibly queer up-and-coming actor arrives at a film director's home for an exchange of intimacy. He showers after their encounter is complete and utilizes the privacy of his bathing to sneak a friend, who appears to personally know the film director, in. The friend hands the actor a packet of powder, suggesting intentions to drug the director, and the actor leaves his friend to reconvene with the man for dinner.

The director offers the actor a role in one of his films, and as the actor rehearses a line in attempt to convince him of his worth, the director passes out, likely from the drugs previously displayed in the film.

The actor quickly reunites with his friend in the bathroom, and a brief exchange of words between the two make clear that the director has a history of sexually coercing up-and-coming actors with promises that he will help launch their careers. The actor makes some final touches to his friend's makeup, and the two reappear in the director's living room for a lip-sync performance marked with tensions of the film industry's pedophilic and sexually coercive nature.

Subtext
Starfuckers is in significant conversation with Hollywood's dark history of pedophilia and sexual coercion. It appears to be an issue that many child actors face but cannot expose due to power and financial advantages possessed by celebrities and executive filmmakers. Former child star Corey Feldman, most famously known for his roles in Stand By Me, Gremlins, and The Lost Boys, is one of few celebrities who has come forward to address the issue. Feldman states, in a 2020 interview with The Guardian, that pedophilia is Hollywood's biggest problem and explains, in another interview with The Hollywood Reporter, that he, a victim of the proclivity for pedophilia within the American film industry, would be the one to face legal problems were he to explicitly name the figures who are committing these acts against young child stars. His commentary works to corroborate the tone of Starfuckers' final scene and the allusion it makes to the silencing of victims that takes place within Hollywood.

Cast

 * Antonio Marziale as Friend of Actor
 * Jonathan Slavin as Film Director
 * Cole Doman as Actor

Production
The film was directed by Antonio Marziale and written by both Marziale and his co-star, Cole Doman. It was produced by the company Field Trip Media and shot in Los Angeles, California. In an interview with Eli Raskin, the film's producer, Marziale recalls the experience of making the film. He shares that he faced difficulty trying to capture the film's intentions with the script alone and that it was ultimately his studio recordings of the lip-sync performance in the final scene that catalyzed the film's production. The starring actor and director describes the film as both a "revenge story" and celebration of drag and "the people who have inspired [him] in [his] life."

Release
The film had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival where it was an official selection. It additionally received official selection status at both Berlinale and the Telluride Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2022 Champs-Élysées Film Festival. In April 2023, the film was made available to view on the Searchlight Pictures Youtube channel.

Critical Reception
James Kleinmann of The Queer Review applauds the "electrifying drag performance" of Antonio Marziale and its capacity to "build a gripping and powerfully moving climax in this audacious queer revenge thriller." Jude Dry of IndieWire celebrates the "audacious erotic thriller" for the mechanisms through which it takes a "direct aim at Hollywood itself, following a gay man who abuses his power by promising the world to apsiring young actors."

Accolades

 * Champs-Élysées Film Festival: Best American Independent Short Film; Grand Jury Prize, 2022.
 * Nitehawk Shorts Festival: First Time Filmmaker Award; Antonio Marziale, 2023.
 * Salute Your Shorts Film Festival: Best of Fest; Jury Prize, 2022.

Cultural Influences
The most notable influence on the creation of this film is the art form known as drag (entertainment). It is defined as a performance art that critiques gender inequalities through use of highly exaggerated costume and makeup. It is most obviously depicted in the final act of the film, during which Antonio Marziale's character is wearing a blonde wig (likely referencing the highly desirable and over-sexualized blonde bombshell image created by Hollywood studios in the 1950s) as he lip-syncs to the audio of an actress speaking, another creative aspect commonly associated with the style of drag performance.