You can imagine being a queer teen in a Christian fundamentalist community in rural Australia is not an easy ride. In his debut feature Leviticus, writer and director Adrian Chiarella imagines how much harder that would be if there were also supernatural forces conspiring against you.
The film centres on the burgeoning romance between 17-year-old Naim – played by Joe Bird, who recently impressed in the wonderful Australian horror film Talk to Me (2022) – and Ryan (Stacy Clausen). The pair are forced to attend a fire-and-brimstone sexual conversion therapy session with a fundamentalist “healer” on a mission to convert the town’s gay and lesbian teens.
