MASIFF: Flesh & Fuel (2025)

Director: Pierre Le Gall | Year: 2025 | Rating: Unclassified 18+ | Runtime: 90 mins | Country: France, Poland | Genre: Drama, Romance | Language: English, French, Polish

Winner of the Queer Palm Revelation Award at Cannes 2026, this swooning feature debut follows a deepening romantic spark that forms between two long-haul truckers.

Étienne is a truck driver. Addicted to the road, he reduces his emotional life to anonymous and fleeting encounters in parking lots. When he meets Bartosz, a Polish truck driver, his solitary routine is turned upside down.

There’s no dearth of works tackling the difficult pursuit of queer love, but Pierre Le Gall’s indelible answer to God’s Own Country and Brief Encounter enriches its tale of unexpected connection by implicating clashes of culture and economy, and exploring questions of self-acceptance, ambition and blue-collar alienation.

Bolstered by Antoine Cormier’s sensitive lensing and Paul Sabin’s affecting score, actors Alexis Manenti and Julian Świeżewski enthral as the film’s central couple, magnetically portraying their chemistry and their distinct responses to this tricky relationship. Flesh and Fuel shows how love can bloom in the most unlikely of places, so long as we’re willing to take a different route.

“Tender [and] hopeful … In what could have been another existential and very French tale of impossible love, Le Gall has boldly chosen to offer up the possibility of redemption.” – The Hollywood Reporter

Accompanying Short: HOMO

Director: Vonne Patiag | Year: 2025 | Rating: Unclassified 15+ | Runtime: 14 mins | Country: Australia | Genre: Drama, Comedy, Queer | Language: English

When Mark, a straight actor, books a queer role, he calls up his old best friend Rem to copy his mannerisms as a character study. As Rem mistakes Mark’s interest for something more, the line between performance and friendship begins to blur.

Vonne Patiag is an AACTA, AWGIE, Logie and SPA Award-nominated Filmmaker based in Western Sydney, Australia.