With five shorts under his belt, Broe jumps spryly into the feature world with a strong grasp of style and a tangible passion for making queer bodies and stories vibrant on screen. The film was co-written by Broe and debuting screenwriter William Lippert , based on a book of the same name by Mads Ananda Lodahl.
But Broe casts the sauna as more of an art museum than a hideaway, with paintings hanging on the walls of each darkroom. Our protagonist scrolls through a fictional Grindr equivalent, but what he really wants is intimacy, not fast-tracked hedonism in a space dominated by quick hookups, as epitomised by such apps.
However, on the app, he meets William played by transmasculine actor and comedian Nina Rask , a trans man sensitive about the fact he has not yet formally started hormone therapy or had gender-affirming surgery. These early-film moments are like a slap in the face, revealing to the audience their stiff, exclusionary and transphobic environment.
The director and DoP Nicolai Lok make a strong visual delineation between the cis spaces frequented by Johan and his friends, strobe-lit clubs where people can hide in the shadows, versus those of William and his friends: still colourful, but considerably more open and relaxed.
Broe intricately crafts this complex relationship through two informal parts. The latter half is devoted more heavily to the tensions that arise when William encounters immense difficulties with the healthcare system.
