The Pool Date is a film about a misunderstanding. It's also a film about sexuality, curiosity and acceptance - and how a strangely intimate connection can be made between two very different people, from two very different worlds - without either of them speaking a word. The story is inspired (in part) by the urban legend A Packet of Biscuits. Although, variations of the tale have been explored in the 1988 Dutch film Boeuf Bourgignon, the 1989 short The Lunch Date and the writing of Ian McEwan and Jeffrey Archer, The Pool Date puts on a new spin as it examines themes of cultural difference, personal space and, above all, sexual desire.
Acting
Beaver and Ruggiero's wordless chemistry is uncomfortably perfect.
Direction
Sisam squeezes a feature's worth of tension into six minutes.
Director
Patrick Sisam
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The 'Packet of Biscuits' urban legend has circulated since at least the 1980s, with versions appearing in Dutch cinema and British literary fiction. Sisam relocates the class anxiety to a gay male cruising context.
Adamo Ruggiero was simultaneously starring in Degrassi: The Next Generation; this short's explicit sexuality reportedly shocked fans of his teen soap character.
US
