MIFF: Sweet Milk Lake

After being mistaken for his brother, a young trans man adapts to a precarious new life in his estranged father’s rural town.

City boy Jake is at a loose end. Unemployed, single and holed up in a granny flat behind his family home, he lives in the shadow of his cisgender twin brother, successful real estate agent Sam. On an impulse, he takes a trip to the remote country town of Sweet Milk, where his terminally ill, estranged father (Kieran Darcy-Smith) still lives, totally unaware that Jake has transitioned. When his dad mistakes him for Sam and Jake misses the moment to correct him, an unforeseen opportunity lands in his lap: to fit in as masculine in a place where nobody suspects he’s trans. Adopting Sam’s identity, he manages to connect with his father for the first time, while a budding romance with local Toby (Hunter Page-Lochard, Kid Snow, MIFF 2024) – himself an outsider in this macho setting – offers further reinvigoration. But the longer Jake spends in Sweet Milk, the more tangled the web he weaves. How long can he hold on to his secret, and what will happen if the truth gets out?

Drawing on his own experiences, debut filmmaker Harvey Zielinski also stars in the dual roles of Jake and Sam in this fish-out-of-water dramedy supported by the MIFF Premiere Fund – a raw, sensitive tale about the long road to self-acceptance and the lies we feel we need to tell to fit in.

Unclassified 18+