Stud Life

synopsis

Stud Life is a light amusing take on Queer street life in London. The film is a post-modern LGBTQIA+ take for the social media generation. Stud Life deals with sex and sexuality and taboo subjects in London’s Queer community. The film is interspersed with introspective monologues on social media by the main character JJ, a Black lesbian masc – the stud. She is tight with her best friend, a white gay man Seb, until she falls in love with sex worker Elle. JJ then has to choose between her new feisty lover and her old BFF.

about the director

Campbell X’s work deals with Queer memory, desire, and Blackness across the African diaspora. His award-winning Queer urban romantic comedy feature film Stud Life (2012) was voted by the Guardian as one of the top 10 Black British feature films ever made and was selected by the British Film Institute as one of the top eight Queer films to watch. Campbell directed and produced the short film Des!re (2017) about joy and sensuality of people who have been assigned female at birth but now define as non-binary, gender nonconforming, transmen, transgender, lesbian, bisexual, and/or Queer. He also directed and produced the documentary Visible (2018) about reclaiming QTBIPOC UK history. His latest film Still We Thrive (2022) about Black joy and resistance has been screened globally at film festivals.

Campbell X is currently in post-production on his second feature Low Rider, which was filmed in the Western Cape region of South Africa, starring Emma Mcdonald and Thishiwe Ziqubu. Campbell X also writes and directs theater and was one of the writers at the Royal Court for the My White Best Friend (2020) theater series.