January 17, 2013 | Arts / Entertainment

New film project about inter-generational intimacy

Canadian filmmaker Bruce LaBruce is hoping to secure funding to complete his latest feature, Gerontophilia. The film explores the love affair between "two old souls who, had they met each other somewhere else along the space/time continuum, might have become the perfect couple."

But with LaBruce, there's always a twist. In this case the main character is Lake (played by actor Pier-Gabriel Lajoie), an 18-year-old boy who is attracted to much older men. He finds works in a nursing home and begins an intimate relationship with an 80-year-old man named Mr. Peabody (Walter Borden).

"The quick pitch for the movie is Harold and Maude meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but it’s not meant to be a glib pair of comparisons," explained LaBruce. "Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude, about the love affair between a young man and an elderly woman, sets a tone between black comedy and romantic realism that Gerontophilia will also aspire to, although in a very different manner. Of course one of the twists of Gerontophilia is that the young man, who is not gay (or if he is, doesn’t know it yet) and has a girlfriend, also has a sexual attraction to old men... Lake is very much afflicted with 'gerontophilia' — a sexual fetish for old people, and in his case, with old men in particular."

LaBruce is using crowd-funding site Indiegogo to raise funds for the project. You can find out more about the film here.