Relax
Directed by Chris Newby
25 mins, UK, 1991
English language, no subtitles
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Director Chris Newby’s Website
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SYNOPSIS BY QUILLBOT AI
Steve is gay and lives with his partner Ned. He has had many partners, and he is worried that he might have the HIV virus. Ned tells him to calm down and take the test. Steve can’t chill out because he can’t stop scrubbing himself. He even uses a toothbrush to clean between his toes. Even though he doesn’t want to find out, he has to take the test. It hurts like hell to wait for the result for five days. He starts a fight with Ned, who is patient and happy. He is asleep. He frets. He thinks about drowning to death. Almost done with waiting, he sits in the doctor’s office and thinks about the two possible outcomes. In either case, is there a good reason for Steve to take it easy?
ABOUT CHRIS NEWBY
Wikiwand
Christopher Newby (born 1957, Leeds, England) is a British film director and screenwriter.
He studied at Leeds Polytechnic and The Royal College of Art in London. He has made several short films, including The Old Man and the Sea, an evocative juxtaposition of marine, religious and body imagery, and Relax (a short film about a gay man awaiting the results of an HIV test, drifting into moments of fantasy). It won the Teddy Award in 1991.
He directed Anchoress (1993), a tale of paganism versus matriarchal Christianity set in a Surrey village in the early fourteenth century. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. In 1995, he directed Madagascar Skin, which starred John Hannah and Bernard Hill. He has continued to make short films, including Stromboli (1997) and Flicker (2001).
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