Chloe Broadbent | Mongrel Punt / 2025

a kiss for everyone to witness

by Douglas Messerli

 

Chloe Broadbent (screenwriter and director) Mongrel Punt / 2025 [9 minutes]

 

Nick (Jack Main) is a major player on his hometown Australian footy team, and already takes a lot of teasing for his good looks and his quiet way from the rest of his teammates.

     In truth he is having an intense affair with his fellow football player, Jack (Nicholas Stackpole). We see the two early in this short film lovingly cavorting in bed, obviously friends very much in love.

     At their next team gathering, the team captain Singlet (Will Curtin) even goes further, trying to get a kiss from pretty boy Nick, he pulls severely away, now accused of having a boyfriend, which he denies he’s ever been worth of.

     After the others leave, however, this time Jack reacts moodily, refusing to even talk with his friend, tired, as he puts it, for being his “little secret.” He insists that no one would really care if he came out to the others, but Nick refuses, worried about his image and even his chances of playing some day on a professional team.

     This time Jack does is not able to carry on anymore as someone who won’t even admit that he loves, calling him emphatically out as a coward.

      Nick spends the night trying to email him with explanations and apologies without success, while recalling their good times together.

       The next day as the footy players meet up, Nick enters the locker room, goes straight up to

Jack and places a deep, long kiss on his lips in front of all the others as they, somewhat amazed, look out. Tyler (Tom Block) is about to make some sarcastic comments, but Singlet demands he stop, as the team goes onto the field.

     Jack suggests that Nick’s behavior was certainly one way of coming out that he hadn’t expected, but smiles at his companion with deep love. After a few dark moments of pause, Nick too joins the others, who, quite amazingly, don’t seem go care.      

       I’d love to believe this little tale, and I truly hope it might be true, but given all the films I’ve watched and written about gay sports players and their secret lovers, I doubt such open behavior would be quite so easily accepted. Let me be wrong. Things can change, but I can’t perceive that they fully have. Let this perhaps be an example for that possibility.

      This film, of course, bears comparison with the far more complex ice hockey film, Heated Rivalry, wherein a hunky hockey player shows his love for another gay man on international television.

 

Los Angeles, October 16, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (October 2026).