Past and present collide when an Iranian American trans man time-travels through an LGBTQ+ archive on a dizzying and erotic quest to unravel his own sexual desires.

Leading trans academic and scholar Jules Rosskam makes his Sundance debut with this daring, sexy exploration of the interdependence of gender expression and sexuality. Deploying a hybrid approach, Rosskam blends a deeply intellectual interrogation of the archive, a sharp erotic imagination, and a series of breathtakingly intimate interviews to create this layered document of transmasculine sexuality and its profoundly social roots and ripples.

Executive producer (and frequent advisor to the Sundance Institute’s Native Labs) Jennifer Reeder returns to Sundance after her 2015 short A Million Miles Away. Lead performers Theo Germaine (of 2019 Sundance Film Festival Indie Episodic breakout Work in Progress) and Aden Hakimi share a cerebral and physical chemistry that enlivens and enriches this examination. Desire Lines is an urgently needed contribution to a sociopolitical landscape in desperate need of empathy, understanding, levity, and freedom.—AH

This film contains graphic sexual content.

Available in person. Also available online for the public (January 25–28) and credentialed press and industry (January 24–28).