Watch: first trailer for real-life gay love story ‘Holding the Man’
By Nick Bond
The poster and trailer for much-anticipated gay love story Holding the Man have been released.
The upcoming film, to be released in its native Australia in August, is an adaptation of the 1995 memoir of the same name by author Timothy Conigrave. The book tells the story of Conigrave’s lifelong relationship with partner John Caleo: the pair started dating as high school students and had a remarkable fifteen-year love story before both succumbing to AIDS in the early 90s. Conigrave himself passed away before the book was released, and so never got to see it become a best-seller – with an award-winning stage adaptation by playwright Tommy Murphy.
Murphy is also on hand for the screenplay of this big screen adaptation, which features young Australian actors Ryan Corr and Craig Stott in the lead roles, with Guy Pearce, Anthony LaPaglia, Camilian Ah Kin and Kerry Fox playing the couple’s parents.
No word yet on a UK release date for the film, but we’ll keep you posted. Widely regarded as a modern classic, the memoir has legions of LGBT fans – and early reports from the film’s debut at the Sydney Film Festival last week suggest that the big screen adaptation tells Conigrave’s story beautifully.
