Image Credit: ‘Thesis on a Domestication,’ La Corriente del Golfo

Before there was Challengers‘ Art & Patrick, there was Julio & Tenoch, the homoerotic friendship at the heart of Y Tu Mamá También, brought to life by IRL friends Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna.

Since the film’s premiere in 2001, its stars have continued to be one of pop culture’s most adorable and enduring bromances, even reuniting on screen this year for Hulu’s Spanish-language series La Maquina, exploring the nature of masculinity in the girtty world of boxing.

But it’s the BFFs next collab that has us especially excited, as Bernal and Luna go behind the camera to produce Thesis On A Domestication, a boundary-pushing queer/trans drama making its world premiere this week.

The film is adapted from a forthcoming novel of the same same by trailblazing trans multi-hyphenate Camila Sosa Villada, who—in a meta move—herself stars as a successful trans actress at the height of her career.

Amidst all the red carpet premieres and paparazzi, our protagonist surprises even herself when she finds love with a distractingly handsome Mexican lawyer (Sense8 and Ozark‘s Alfonso Herrera) who sweeps her off her feet—and is apparently happy to indulge in her kinkiest desires.

Image Credit: ‘Thesis on a Domestication,’ La Corriente del Golfo

As they build a life together, the two eventually get married, make a home for themselves, and even start to discuss the possibility of adopting a child. Suddenly, she’s facing the realities of monogamy and motherhood—ideas she never thought could be possible for her as a trans woman.

But the more she finds her life aligning with these traditional, heteronormative values, the more she finds herself thinking about her fraught yet uninhibited and independent past. The struggle between the happiness of freedom and domestic bliss comes to a head when the couple makes a visit to her hometown in rural Argentina.

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Thesis On A Domestication reunites Sosa Villada with filmmaker Javier van de Couter, who previously directed her in his debut feature film, Mía, from 2011.

“Making the adaptation with Camila was a privilege,” van de Couter tells Variety in an exclusive interview, “mainly because in that transition from literature to film we never forget that it’s a story invented by a trans person to talk about another trans person, as authentic and disconcerting as that is for cinema.”

Image Credit: ‘Thesis on a Domestication,’ La Corriente del Golfo

By making a film that blends the trauma with the joy and celebration, one that interrogates the barometers for success through a trans and queer lens, the director realizes how rare—and therefore provocative—Sosa Villada’s story might be.

“What’s important is that there’s a diverse cinema that talks about trans people without always looking at them as compassionate, scandalous, marginal,” van de Couter continues. “We need a cinema that shows these lives without disguise. When a transgender person walks in front of a camera, it immediately creates a hypnotic, poetic, unique effect on the viewer that fills me with joy every time it happens.”

Bernal and Luna came on board via their joint production company La Corriente del Golfo, and with their shared international star power, they’re ensuring this vital film can be seen by audiences around the globe.

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Thesis On A Domestication will make its world premiere this coming Saturday, Oct. 19 at the Chicago International Film Festival before heading to Mexico’s Morelia Film Festival, which runs from Oct. 18 – 27.

Ahead of its debut, check out the film’ intoxicating first trailer below:

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