Ahead of the GAZE International LGBTQIA Film Festival, Gemma Creagh talks to Festival Director Greg Thorpe and Dominic Savage, Director of Close To You, starring co-writer and producer Elliot Page, which closes this year’s festival.
Subscribe to the Film Ireland podcast on your favourite platform here.
Close To You
Elliot Page gives a delicate but defiantly star turn in his first feature role as a trans man since coming out in 2020. Sam (Page) is facing a nerve-shredding experience familiar to many queer people – returning home to a family occasion after a period of estrangement. What begins as a gentle reunion drama soon unravels, and in his time-out from familial stresses, Sam runs into a former hometown lover, Katherine, played by the brilliant Hillary Baack.
The nostalgia of their younger days threatens to sweep them both away, but the world has changed and so have they. Close To You’s improvised script and close co-production with the actors and director Dominic Savage is a model of queer film-making that lends the piece an intimate natural realism that is such a deep pleasure to sink into.
The GAZE International LGBTQIA Film Festival runs 1 – 5 August 2025.
