So Close, Yet So Far: Marco De Luca on ‘Park Life’

One of our first glimpses of Italian-born filmmaker Marco De Luca’s new short film ‘Park Life’ (2024) is of Alexander Da Fonseca’s Medhi leaning against a tree. Cooly and seductively, he smokes as he takes in his surroundings. He catches Noah’s (George Turner) eye. The characters are cruising, and he will gently rebuff Noah’s advances. As the film unfolds, however, their relationship becomes far more than a hookup. Noah walks Medhi to his home near Shepherd’s Bush station in London; and they come to know each other, and we them, through snippets of conversations. All the while, we watch as the city wakes up to a new dawn. In this interview, De Luca and I explore the making of his film. We begin by examining how he eschews familiar narratives about gay life, including tropes such as open relationships and commitment, to investigate the connection that his characters form. We go on to look at how the film began as storyboards and how he moves away from them in response to some of the affordances and challenges of filming in London. Finally, we attend to Medhi’s and Noah’s romance, notably how Medhi changes his tune to become attached to Noah, and what’s in store for them—and for De Luca.