s i e v o L ’No Hiding Here’ brings fun, gay love to forefront JAMAL GROOTBOOM jamald.grootboom@inl.co.za
QUEER cinema in South Africa has come a long way and No Hiding Here as the country’s first gay romantic comedy is making more waves. Directed by local queer film-maker Gabe Gabriel (he/ him/they/them), No Hiding Here is set in a small South African town where a beloved drama teacher accidentally plays gay porn during the biggest school event of the year. This forces him, and the event’s guest and featured artist – a closeted big city celebrity – into hiding from the outraged community. Gabriel moves between Cape Town and Los Angeles, where he has been working as a writer, director, actor and independent film producer since 2013. We spoke to him about No Hiding Here, what it was like filming through the pandemic and his hopes for the future of local queer films and TV.
No Hiding Here director Gabe Gabriel.
What inspired you to make No Hiding Here? Nagvlug producer, Zandré Coetzer, approached me with the idea to write a “warm and fuzzy” gay South African romantic comedy for Showmax. . So I got together with two other queer writers, Kelly-
Eve Koopman and Nico Scheepers. We brainstormed ideas that would keep our story small and contained (for budget reasons) but still feel to some degree universal and magical. I always take moments that happen in real life. Let’s just say I’ve accidentally played
some explicit adult content through my laptop at a really inappropriate moment so … that’s sort of what inspired the “inciting incident”. Why do you think it’s important to have more
