The first feature film from young gay director Stephen Dunn, Closet Monster debuts at the Toronto International Film Festival as part of its Canadian program, and will have its world premiere Sept. 13. The film stars emerging actor Connor Jessup, who plays Oscar, and has a hamster voiced by Isabella Rossellini. Here's a synopsis:
The film follows high-school student and aspiring special-effects makeup artist Oscar as he desperately strives to get out, in all respects: out of the Newfoundland town that is stifling his budding creativity, out of his restrictive home life, and out of the closet, where he has fearfully remained after witnessing a brutal hate crime as a young boy. Finding support from his best friend Gemma and his pet hamster Buffy (voiced, naturally, by Isabella Rossellini), Oscar is haunted by horrifying visions of the consequences of revealing his homosexuality -- compounded by his increasingly judgmental and erratic father. When Oscar meets the handsome and rebellious Wilder, in tandem with his fantasies becoming darker and ever more vividly real, he finds that he must break free of the chains that bind him and live a life that is true to who he really is.
Watch the trailer for Closet Monster below:
