Wink
2020 · 3m · United Kingdom
Directed by Abel Rubinstein
Tones: darkly comic, provocative
A small group of queer punks find safety and comfort in their local queer pub, but their world is turned upside down when a group of normative heterosexuals obnoxiously take over the pub. Tate and Bunny lead a mission to take it back. Produced for New Creatives (Arts Council England and BBC Arts); shown at Current Transmissions 2020.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A three-minute revenge fantasy that inverts the usual power dynamics of queer cinema — instead of seeking acceptance from the mainstream, these punks just want their space back, and the film finds its darkly comic teeth in that refusal to apologize. It's the kind of premise that makes you go 'wait, they're just... taking it back?' and then you realize that's exactly the point.
Rubinstein's work sits within a lineage of queer counter-cinema and activist video art, using the pub as a liminal space that recalls both the underground venue tradition and contemporary LGBTQ+ social practice; the formal brevity here serves as constraint rather than limitation, sharpening the political argument.
The film's entire gravitational force hinges on the tonal pivot when the straight group arrives—it's the editing rhythm and performance temperature shift that transforms this from slice-of-life into something with teeth, and Rubinstein nails that specific moment of tone-breaking that elevates what could've been a sketch into something with real stakes.