David Mora | Mear (Pissing) / 2025

doing what comes naturally

by Douglas Messerli

 

David Mora (screenwriter and director) Mear (Pissing) / 2025 [3 minutes]

 

Written and produced evidently for Pride Month in 2025, Spanish director David Mora’s very short film, Pissing begins with two cute boys, David (Leo Ivanchenko) and Isaac (Julio Batalla), sitting at the edge of a pool, their feet dangling into the water.

      Whether they’ve just dared one another to confess their worst secrets or they just have spontaneous began such a discussion, as the film begins, Isaac admits that when he was little he used to pee the bed. David laughs, suggesting that such a thing occurs to many children, Issac interrupting with the added clause, “Not until you’re 12!”  

      “It was awful,” he admits. “I couldn’t invite anyone to sleep over, or go on school trips.” He was taken by his parents to psychologists but nothing worked.

      David wonders why he eventually stopped, to which Isaac replies: “I don’t know. I guess I just started doing it where I was supposed to.”

      David, in turn, admits that he has never kissed anyone.

      Isaac doubts his friend’s statement, particularly since he’s seen him making out with a bunch of girls.

      “I didn’t say no one’s ever kissed me. I said I’ve never kissed anyone…. For real.”

      Isaac naturally wonders why not, to which David honestly replies: “I guess I’ve never liked someone seriously, or maybe I have and I’ve just never dared to take the step.”

      Isaac argues that his friend should just do it, that kissing is like peeing, something natural “that when you feel like doing it, you just can’t hold it in.”

      Slowly, David leans toward Isaac and kisses him on the lips. “What are you doing?” asks Isaac, to which David quite naturally answers, “Peeing. [Mear.]”  And quite predictably, Isaac slowly leans toward David and returns the kiss.

      So, it would seem, ends our little gay vignette.

      Amazingly, however, the films is miniaturized, cut into a small corner as the director suddenly appears demanding a back delete to the line “Well, do it, because kissing is like peeing.”

      The new script suggests that David thinks that Isaac is probably right. Moreover, he’s like him since the first day they met in basketball, but as he’s about to do it, he runs off. Fear takes over, the fear of losing his friend, of what people will say, and being laughed about it in class. He stops at the fence, taking a deep breath, and “Tells himself a hundred times, ‘That’s not right.’”

      From where he remains sitting, Isaac asks “What are you doing?’

      To which David replies, “Peeing.”

     Tacked onto this sweet movie about coming to terms with love is the summary: “Porque los besos no se simulan. Se viven. Ni una generación más sin su primer beso. Un cortometraje sobre la juventud, los miedos, y ese primer beso que nunca debería olvidarse.” My translation (better, I’d argue, than the transcript of the film itself) reads: “Because kisses aren't faked, they're lived, not one more generation should go without their first kiss. This short film is about youth, fears, and that first kiss that should never be forgotten.”

 

Los Angeles, August 10, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2025).