Familiar
2025 · 19m
Directed by Marco Novoa
Genres: drama, fantasy, horror
Tones: dark, darkly comic, melancholic, tender
Three characters navigate personal crises that converge in supernatural fashion: Steve is kicked out by his parents for being gay; Caroline struggles to grieve the end of her motherhood while accompanying Youri on tour; and Youri is a drag performer touring France. Their intertwined destinies unite them in a vampire story that uses the mythology as a lens for queerness, found family, and transformation rather than horror spectacle.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Drag-queen vampires on tour in France with a withheld genre reveal — that's a lot of plot for nineteen minutes, and the "queer found family + bloodsucking" pitch is by now its own subgenre. SXSW Staff Pick suggests it lands; my suspicion suggests it strains.
Novoa understands that the horror genre's rules — threshold, invitation, transformation — have always been the rules of queer survival, and Familiar maps that correspondence with rare emotional precision.
Withholding the vampire reveal until late and using blood-sucking drag queens as a found-family lens rather than horror spectacle is the rare genre-as-vehicle move that earns the swap — SXSW Vimeo Staff Pick Award winner suggests Novoa landed the tonal pivot. Three convergent crises across 19 minutes is a lot to track but worth it.
Reviews
This captivating narrative weaves together themes of queerness, connection, and found family with a dash of blood-sucking drag queens. In a storytelling landscape where vampire tales often recycle familiar tropes, this striking film offers a fresh approach with equal parts darkness and heart.
Tender and loving with beautiful cinematography.
Festivals
- SXSW Film Festival 2025, Vimeo Staff Pick Award
- Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2025
- Fantasia International Film Festival 2025
- REGARD – Festival International du court-métrage au Saguenay 2025
- Gérardmer Fantastic Film Festival 2025
- Festival Désir-Désir 2025