PARIS 05:59

"Its biggest talking point will be the 18-minute hardcore gay orgy at the start, yet the film, conceived in real time, is above all a story about what happens when that bolt of lightning called love suddenly strikes." – Variety

Théo and Hugo lock eyes in the early hours at an underground Parisian sex club. Their chemistry is immediate, and the sex is intensely romantic and real. Unable to separate, the two men wander the City of Lights' magical streets, talking life, art and philosophy as they fall hard for each other.

Fresh from its audience-electrifying premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau's (Mariscos Beach, MIFF 2005; Funny Felix, MIFF 2000) queer romance sensation promises to be one of the most discussed movies in the programme, both for pushing boundaries and capturing a wonderfully poignant sense of new love.

Evoking the desultory romances of Richard Linklater's Before series, the real-time urgency of Agnès Varda's Cléo from 5 to 7 and the tenderness of Andrew Haigh's Weekend – if they'd opened with a lurid 20-minute sex scene – Paris 05:59 is a torrid, nearly tragic, and ultimately moving piece.

Winner of the 2016 Berlinale's Teddy Audience Award for favourite film.

Contains sexually explicit material