The Controversial ‘Blue Film,’ Rejected by Mainstream Film Festivals, Is Picked Up by Obscured Releasing

Elliot Tuttle's film, billed by IndieWire as one of the most daring American films of recent vintage, will be released in May.

Here’s a word we’re hearing far less often when it comes to allegedly filmmaker-friendly and seemingly daring distributors: “scared.” But leave it to rising filmmaker Elliot Tuttle to (fearlessly) invoke it when referring to unnamed distros when it comes to his already-controversial feature debut, “Blue Film.”

The film has now been picked up by fledgling distributor Obscured Releasing, recently launched by RJ Millard and Bill Guentzler, who Tuttle names as being decidedly not afraid of his art. “I’m thrilled to be partnering with Obscured Releasing on our theatrical rollout of ‘Blue Film.’ Their passion and commitment to a long life for our film made this an easy choice,” said Tuttle in an official statement. “A lot of people were scared, but Obscured wasn’t.”

The shingle will release the film in theaters this May. Per its official logline: “The film follows fetish camboy Aaron Eagle (Kieron Moore), who agrees to spend the night with an anonymous client (Reed Birney) and discovers a disturbing tie to his past.”

But that’s not even the half of it.

In our annual end-of-year list of worthy films still in search of distribution, our own Ryan Lattanzio wrote, “Few contemporary films about unresolved childhood abuse — which is always unresolved, in the end, anyway — cut as narrowly close to the bone as Elliot Tuttle’s two-hander masked as provocation, ‘Blue Film.’ Rejected by mainstream film festivals before it premiered in Edinburgh this summer and NewFest in New York in October, this taboo-busting study of a masculine camboy confronted by the pedophile teacher who many years ago desired him holds back little and offers even less that’s palatable to swallow. Its limitations as a stagelike piece aside, the movie wrings emotional complexity from a fraught, ever-shifting dialogue between a convicted child abuser and the student, now a late twenties sex worker, he spared.

He added, “‘Blue Film,’ which takes place entirely in a rented Hancock Park Airbnb in Los Angeles with only two actors, dares to go places I have not seen an American movie travel to in a while. There was an Israeli movie called ‘Princess’ at Sundance in 2014, directed by Tali Shalom Ezer, which freaked a lot of people out. It was about a 12-year-old girl’s ‘close relationship’ with her mother’s boyfriend. There was the 2011 Austrian movie ‘Michael,’ directed by Michael Haneke protégé Markus Schleinzer, about an insurance salesman sexually abusing the 10-year-old boy locked up in his basement. These were shocking. Neither were American.”

You can also read his full review right here.

The film had its world premiere at the 2025 Edinburgh International Film Festival and its North American premiere at Newfest this past fall. The film went on to play at OUTShine Film Festival, Philadelphia International Film Festival, Montclair Film Festival, and more.

“What Elliot accomplishes in telling the story of how two men’s sexuality and their connection shaped their futures is simultaneously humane and shocking,” said Millard and Guentzler in a statement. “He is asking questions no American filmmaker has dared to ask in decades and we’re thrilled to be launching ‘Blue Film’ in theaters.”

The filmmaker-focused Obscured Releasing most recently released “Stop the Insanity: Finding Susan Powter” and “Endless Cookie.”

The film was produced by Bijan Kazerooni, Will Youmans, Adam Kersh, and Waylon Sall, with Mark Duplass as consulting producer, and Birney and Eric Kohn as executive producers. The deal was negotiated by Matt Burke of Submarine Entertainment on behalf of the filmmakers, and O’Brien Kelley of The Kelley Firm on behalf of Obscured Releasing.