Pillion is the Cannes-winning queer drama about a traffic warden and a biker gang leader. We're giving away three double passes and entering couldn't be easier.
British filmmaker Harry Lighton’s debut feature Pillion arrives in Australian cinemas on 19 February, fresh from its award-winning run at Cannes Film Festival. The film took home Best Screenplay at the Un Certain Regard section, alongside the Palm Dog for Mutt Moment and nominations for the Caméra d’Or and Queer Palm.
Pillion centres on Colin, a traffic warden whose meticulously ordered existence with his parents gets thrown sideways when he encounters Ray, the magnetic leader of a gay biker gang. What begins as an initiation into a world of leather, ritual and unspoken codes transforms into something far more consuming, raising questions about identity, control and the cost of total surrender.
Pillion
- Release: 19 February
- Location: Australian cinemas
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The film adapts Adam Mars-Jones’ 2020 novel Box Hill, though Lighton shifts the action from the 1970s to present-day outer-London. Alexander Skarsgård steps into the role of Ray, bringing his trademark intensity to a character who oscillates between tenderness and menace without ever settling into easy categories. Opposite him, Harry Melling delivers Colin with magnetic vulnerability, having learned barbershop singing, mastered wrestling moves and shaved his head for the part.
Portsmouth-born filmmaker Lighton spent time with actual members of the Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club during research, with some later appearing in the finished product. The supporting cast features Lesley Sharp, Douglas Hodge and Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears making his screen acting debut.
Pillion currently holds a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes and has been described by critics as transgressive, darkly funny and surprisingly tender. The film marks Lighton as a filmmaker to watch, having previously earned a BAFTA nomination for his 2017 short Wren Boys.
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