Outside the Aquarium

Jonas is a Black gay immigrant living in Germany and a painter preparing his new exhibition, titled Outside the Aquarium. His canvases hold what he struggles to say aloud: the fears, loneliness, and hopes of building a future in a community that does not always see him whole. As the opening approaches, the film moves between Jonas's present relationship with his partner Lukas and the past encounters, romantic and professional, that shaped him, including brushes with racism and fetishization inside the gay scene. Alex Mello writes, directs, and stars as Jonas, with Julius Dombrink as Lukas, in a German short that treats art-making as a way of surviving and of being seen. Screened at festivals including the KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, it is a personal, painterly meditation on identity and belonging.