Neil BakerBFI London Film Festival 2020 presents Cicada, arriving on digital from 21st January 2022.
There are approximately 3,000 species of Cicada, their lives spent underground before emerging into the light to mate and briefly fly free. Like those, Cicada’s Matt Fifer and Kieran Mulcare’s debut feature sees two men fly free in each other’s arms, their past pain ebbing away as they stretch their wings and prepare to soar into the sky.
The fear of appearing weak often leads to a padlocked cage of hidden anguish in many men as they create a double life where their public persona hides their private sorrow. For some men, this leads to self-harm, reliance on alcohol or drugs, homelessness, and even suicide, with family and friends unaware of their inner torment. However, in recent years, this veil of emotional secrecy in men has begun to lift, with men’s mental health finally receiving the attention it deserves. This has enabled many men to step out of the shadows and unlock their emotional prison, and it’s here where Cicada finds a powerful and essential voice.
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During the summer of 2012, the Sandusky trials dominated the American media as multiple sexual crimes against children were finally and bravely brought into the light. It is against this backdrop that we meet Ben (Matt Fifer), a young man addicted to sex with both male and female partners. But Ben’s sex addiction only offers a brief respite and escape from his inner self as the fleeting pleasure of sex is replaced by fear and anxiety. For all of Ben’s outward confidence and humour, a much deeper pain eats away at him, one he cannot vocalise. As Ben cruises for sex, a man catches his eye at a local book kiosk, Sam (Sheldon D. Brown), but can both men let each other into their closed emotional worlds?
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The raw and compelling honesty on display in Cicada and its discussions on male mental health is only strengthened by Fifer and Mulcare’s stunning exploration of race, interracial relationships and intersectionality. Here, discussions on family acceptance, racism and the pressures of competing equality characteristics in defining the individual are handled with the utmost care and thought as the two men’s past lives merge into a shared but delicate path to recovery.
Directors: Matthew Fifer, Kieran Mulcare
Cast: Matthew Fifer, Sheldon D. Brown, Sandra Bauleo, Jazmin Grace Grimaldi, Cobie Smulders, Michael Potts
Cicada (2020)
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Cicada
Summary
Cicada carries a raw and compelling honesty throughout as both men’s pasts find a new sense of peace through companionship. Here Ben and Sam discover their inner resolve through their shared love as two souls combine into one on a path of healing.
