Fort York
sunday, june 15, 2025

Y Tu Mamá También

With the short films July's Wet Dreams and Say Uncle

Move over Emilia Pérez: if you’re looking for a queer love-letter to Mexico actually written, directed, and starring Mexican people, you need to look no further than Y tu mamá también. Mexican auteur (and two-time Best Director Oscar-winning) Alfonso Cuarón’s breakthrough feature is a sexy, sultry, but ultimately poignant coming-of-age road movie featuring breakout performances by Mexican actors Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna. García Bernal and Luna play best friends Julio and Tenoche, who after seeing their girlfriends off on a trip to Italy for the summer with promises of fidelity, begin planning a hedonistic summer where they are anything but faithful. Their plans quickly deteriorate into boredom – that is, until a chance encounter with Luisa (prolific Spanish actress Maribel Verdú) at a wedding kickstarts a fateful, erotically charged roadtrip across rural Mexico in search of the fictitious Boca del Cielo, a secluded beach the boys make up to impress the older Luisa. In classic coming-of-age fashion, the journey to find the beach becomes a journey in which the boys discover more about themselves – emotionally, physically, and sexually. 

Rounding out this Father’s Day screening, Toronto-set short film Say Uncle (directed by James Cooper and written by Peter Knegt) echoes Y tu mamá también’s central threesome, but played for comedic effect. When Jake receives a message from his estranged friend Drew during a visit home, he had no idea that it would lead him back to Drew’s home, Drew’s girlfriend, and a drunken – though completely serious – request for Jake to be the couple’s sperm donor. Meanwhile July’s Wet Dreams is a more experimental take on Y tu mamá también’s hot summer road trip, consisting of a single shot of hand-processed 8mm film of silhouettes frollicking in a fountain on a hot summer day.