How intensely does loneliness feed desire? And how much brighter does this fire burn when loneliness becomes isolation? In his provocative new erotic drama, vanguard Mexican director Julián Hernández (I Am Happiness on Earth, Frameline38; Broken Sky, Frameline30) brings to life an eerie but sexually charged world during an unnamed pandemic, as two neighbors drawn to each other during quarantine wrestle with the desires bubbling up underneath fear and caution.

In The Trace of Your Lips, Hernández reunites with two of his frequent collaborators and muses, Hugo Catalán (El juego de las llaves) and Mauricio Rico (Wandering Clouds, Frameline38). The film brings together B-movie actor Román (Catalán) and Aldo (Rico), a dancer who works at a local bodega — two neighbors separated by a busy street, whose lives intersect online at the onset of a city-wide lockdown. With evocative references to the AIDS crisis as well as our own time, what follows is an erotic, visceral, and generous exploration of the pandemic state of mind, a time when individual pleasure becomes a taboo.