Luke Wintour’s Short film ‘Sweetheart’ premieres at sundance film festival 2025

Directed by Luke Wintour and written by Alastair Curtis, the film premieres Thursday, Jan. 23, at the Sundance Film Festival.

Long before – like centuries before — “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” there were Molly Houses, queer underground clubs that operated in London in the 1700s.

Yes, the 1700s.

By day, these houses were regular coffeehouses, but at night, they turned into secret same-sex watering holes that included drag performances, sexual activity and more. There were up to more than two dozen houses throughout London at the height of their popularity.

Molly Houses — molly was a slang term for gay men in 18th century England — are brought to life in “Sweetheart,” a scripted short about a young man (Eben Figueiredo) being introduced to London’s secret queer subculture in 1723.