Pillion

Shy and unworldly, Colin works at a parking lot and still lives with his working-class parents. One day, after singing with his father in the local pub, he meets Ray—a hardcore, enigmatic biker. Drawn to him, Colin soon agrees to submit to his every demand, stepping into a realm entirely unfamiliar to him. Set within the BDSM biker subculture, PILLION is both a heartfelt tribute to the community and one of its warmest portrayals in contemporary cinema. Yet beneath its gently campy and explicit “Tom of Finland” aesthetic lies a narrative of almost classical— even quintessentially British—design: an amusing, romantic tale of master and slave, or simply of opposites, whose bond at once dissolves and reinforces the boundaries between them. The curious, open-minded Colin is just only beginning to explore his identity, while Ray remains trapped within a shell of hypermasculinity and dominance—a set of posturings that feels more like a defence mechanism than anything else. By revealing these tensions, PILLION deftly examines the unspoken conflicts between desire and love, intimacy and partnership, and privacy and public recognition that endure even in the most progressive societies. (James Lattimer)

Harry Lighton: KNITLAB: XY (2016, K), SUNDAY MORNING COMING DOWN (2016, K), LOOK AT ME (2017, K), WREN BOYS (2017, K), LEASH (2018, K), POMPEII (2019, K)