Melting Point is an experimental short film that explores the dance of the erotic through the female gaze and an unusual lens. Two female lovers come together in sensual and sexual play, only the scene is filmed with a thermal camera, which records temperature instead of light. The warmth of a hot shower, the cold shock of ice gliding across skin, and the literal heat of two bodies meeting become unexpected explosions of color.

I’ve long been interested in how women access our erotic selves, not just sexually, but as a source of vitality, creativity, and aliveness. In Melting Point, I wanted to see what might happen if we looked at women’s pleasure in a new way, free from the usual visual tropes that have defined it. The thermal camera reveals pleasure as energy, pattern, and transformation, a language of heat and movement rather than surface or performance.

The resulting film becomes both an experiment in seeing and a meditation on honesty: what joy becomes possible when we allow ourselves to play freely? Melting Point is part of an ongoing body of research called Erospace, which explores how women reconnect with the erotic as a way of coming alive.

Melting Point had its in-person world premiere at Frameline: The San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival in June 2022. It has since screened in dozens of festivals around the world, winning Best Erotic Short at the Peephole Film Fest in Guadalajara, Mexico, and Best Experimental Short at the Orchid Lesbian International Film Festival in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Other screenings include New York’s CineKink, Out On Film: Atlanta’s LGBTQ Film Festival, Porn Film Festival Berlin, Seattle Queer Film Festival, Porny Days Film Art Festival in Zurich, Melbourne Queer Film Festival, Queer Film Festival Weimar, The Little Queer Festival in Leipzig, the Bee Festival in Brazil, The Bush Films in New York City, Porn Film Festival Vienna, Immaginaria (Lesbians and Other Rebellious Women) in Rome, London Lesbian Film Festival, Athens Porn Film Festival, Post-Porn Warsaw, Muestra de Cine Erótico y PosPorno de Bogotá, Queerstreift Festival, the Erotic Art and Film Festival, the San Francisco PornFilmFestival, Erotic Edge in India, Le Fesses-tival in Geneva, PORNights in Schikaneder, Queerotics: Queer Film Festival 2023, Queer Film Festival Bremen, Queer Film Festival Munich, OsloErotic, MIX Copenhagen LGBTQIA+ Film Festival, and others.

Melting Point was also named one of the Best Films of 2022 by the independent adult platform PinkLabel.TV, where it is available for streaming.

2022. Directed by Mindy Stricke
Runtime: 5 min.
Country: Canada