WATCH: A hookup gets too messy for one guy to handle in this intimate festival fave short film
Come Clean, the latest from writer/director Sal Bardo (whose 2013 short Chaser remains a controversial must-see over a decade later).Subscribe to our daily newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.The film follows Kel (Ben Church)—a young man living with OCD—over an emotional roller coaster of a night as he hurriedly cleans and prepares for the arrival of a Grindr date, Nate (James Hayden Rodriguez, known for his role in Broadway’s The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical).But just when things start to heat up with Nate, Kel’s mind gets to racing, and suddenly he’s aware of every single germ he’s inviting into his safe space.
Can Nate help him overcome his fears and embrace the pleasures of connection and intimacy?According to the International O.C.D.
Foundation, about one in every 100 adults are currently living with obsessive compulsive disorder, and Come Clean depicts the realities of this in a way seldom seen on screen.And, for Bardo, the short comes from a very personal place—and not just because of the need for greater mental health advocacy and resources within the LGBTQ+ community.“I didn’t touch another human being for more than a year because of COVID,” Bardo shares in a press statement for the film. “And I started thinking about what that does to someone—mentally, emotionally, and physically—and how even before the pandemic connecting with people was becoming harder and harder.
