Hot Sheet: Studs and Pearls

6. VOD: Stud Life
It’s fitting that Stud Life, a sort of updated She’s Gotta Have It for the post-queer Millennial generation, is debuting on Feb. 19 on digital platforms. The 80-minute, unrated film has already had a life on social media (see @StudLifeMovie and @CampbellX on Twitter, for examples) and seems perfectly suited for younger viewers for whom YouTube is preferable to a big box movie theater. But, that doesn’t mean you need to be 19 to love Stud Life, a look inside the LGBT scene in urban London where gender and sexuality are entwined with street life, and people are rethinking the rules of love, sex, and friendship. The feature debut from veteran British TV director Campbell X follows black, butch lesbian JJ (played pitch perfectly by T’nia Miller) and her white gay best friend Seb (played by Kyle Treslove). The friendship between the two (who work as wedding photogs by day) is tested when JJ falls for a gorgeous femme named Elle (played by The Purifiers star Robyn Kerr). It pushes them all to their limits and makes JJ evaluate what’s more important — love or friendship — because, after all, philosophical questions like that are timeless. See the trailer below.