Ash Mayfair’s latest gritty new drama, Skin Of Youth, is landing a streaming run on Film Movement+ on June 26. The film is directed by Ash Mayfair for a cast led by Trân Quân and Vo Dien Gia Huy, along with Hajime Inoue, Hoang Le Cong, and Phan Thi Kim Ngân.
The film joins a brimming line-up of other titles for the streamer’s block of queer-centric titles this summer. Check out the announcement below along with a trailer from the film’s 2024 NYAFF premiere:
Set in the shadowy underworld of 1990s Saigon, SKIN OF YOUTH is a luminous yet gritty love story from director Ash Mayfair (The Third Wife) that explores desire, identity, and survival at the margins of society.
San (Tran Quan), a transgender sex worker, dreams of saving enough money for gender-affirming surgery and finally living fully in her own body. By her side is Nam, her fiercely devoted lover, who risks his life as an underground cage fighter to help make that dream a reality. Their bond is tender yet precarious, shaped by both deep affection and the harsh realities of their world. As they struggle to build a future together, the couple is pulled into a dangerous orbit when a powerful and manipulative oligarch becomes fixated on San. And what begins as a fragile pursuit of hope soon spirals into a confrontation with forces far beyond their control, threatening not only their relationship but their very humanity.
Following her acclaimed debut The Third Wife, Mayfair crafts a striking portrait of queer life and personal freedom, blending emotional intensity with sensuous imagery. Through its richly textured visuals and emotionally charged performances, SKIN OF YOUTH captures a love tested to its absolute limits, and where survival and self-realization come at a profound cost.
This June, Film Movement Plus spotlights boundary-pushing stories of queer identity, desire and self-determination, anchored by four acclaimed Pride Month premieres that place LGBTQ+ voices at the forefront of global cinema. From the quietly radical Taiwanese romance WHO’LL STOP THE RAIN (6/5) and Marie Losier’s electrifying portrait of feminist icon in PEACHES GOES BANANAS (6/12), to Wanuri Kaihu’s revelatory RAFIKI (6/19) and BLIND LOVE, a Taiwanese drama starring Ke-Xi Wu (6/26), the month’s lineup explores how personal freedom — sexual, artistic and political — is fought for, claimed and, at times, painfully earned. These films join the platform’s burgeoning catalog of LGBTQ+ films, which includes GLAAD-nominated 20,000 SPECIES OF BEES from Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren, a touching portrait of a young trans child and her family, Bruce LaBruce’s SAINT-NARCISSE, called a “sinfully satisfying cinematic snack” (The Washington Blade), Midi Z’s taut Un Certain Regard-nominee NINA WU, the vibrant documentary ANTONIO LOPEZ 1970: SEX FASHION & DISCO and more.
DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHY
Ash Mayfair is an award-winning writer-director based in Los Angeles and Ho Chi Minh city.
After receiving an MFA in filmmaking at NYU, Ash wrote, directed and co-produced her first feature, THE THIRD WIFE. The screen play was a recipient of the Spike Lee Film Production Award 2016. The film premiered at Toronto International Film Festival in 2018 and won the NETPAC Jury Award. THE THIRD WIFE has garnered more than 20 awards worldwide, screened at over 70 film festivals and received distribution in 30+ territories. In 2020, THE THIRD WIFE earned three Spirit Award Nominations in the US including the Someone To Watch nomination for Ash. SKIN OF YOUTH is her second feature.
SKIN OF YOUTH is one of 4 winners of the NYU Purple List for the best unproduced screenplays written by graduates and is a semi-finalist of the Academy Nicholls Competition in 2020. Ash is also an alumna of the Sundance Film Two Lab 2020 and a recipient of the Berlinale Nipkow Fellowship 2020.
