Fifteen-year-old Gabo seems like a regular teenager who goes to school, plays video games with his best friend and does other things a normal teenager would do – except he’s not. He has tendencies he knows to be wrong, but cannot control.

He befriends Dave, a much older man with his own fantasies. Lines soon start to blur between a trusting friendship and being groomed. Once Dave is arrested on suspicion of statutory rape, Gabo must suddenly decide whether to testify against his mentor with the risk of exposing his own secret.

Director Steve Bache’s debut is not your ordinary coming-of-age film, confronting taboo subjects that will shake the viewer to the core, asking questions about what we are born as and what life can turn us into.

Triin Tramberg