Private Project

Bury Your Gays

Bury Your Gays follows actor Grace, who can’t understand why every role she lands ends in her untimely death—until a mysterious agent explains the ‘Bury Your Gays’ trope. Now, trapped in a genre-hopping battle for survival, Grace has one mission: do not die.

  • Charlotte Serena Cooper
    Director
    Barbie, Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Belgravia: The Next Chapter, The Burning Girls
  • Charlotte Serena Cooper
    Writer
    Barbie, Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Belgravia: The Next Chapter, The Burning Girls
  • Charlotte Brownlee
    Producer
    Travel Socks (Short Film), The Crown, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Eternals, Dumbo, Spider-man: Far From Home, The Flash, Morbius
  • Jude Mack
    Key Cast
    "Grace"
    Mickey 17, Such Brave Girls, Prime Target, I Hate Susie
  • T'Nia Miller
    Key Cast
    "The Agent"
    The Fall of the House of Usher, The Haunting of Bly Manor, The Peripheral, Sex Education
  • Harry Trevaldwyn
    Key Cast
    "Matty"
    How to Train Your Dragon, My Lady Jane, The Bubble
  • Sophie Melville
    Key Cast
    "Clara"
    The Pact, The Missing, Call the Midwife
  • Ella-Rae Smith
    Key Cast
    "Kelly"
    One Day, The Witcher, Clique
  • Amelia Clarkson
    Key Cast
    "Hannah"
    Death in Paradise, The Last Kingdom, Poldark
  • Blake Harrison
    Key Cast
    "Male Director"
    The Inbetweeners, World on Fire, A Very English Scandal, The Great
  • Sule Rimi
    Key Cast
    "Kelly's Dad"
    The Day of the Jackal, Foundation, Andor
  • Ryan Dean
    Key Cast
    "Gavin"
    The Gentleman, The Jetty, Ackley Bridge
  • Boris Thompson-Roylance
    Executive Producers
    Swede Caroline, Matar
  • Jack Thompson-Roylance
    Executive Producers
    Swede Caroline, Matar
  • Anthony Toma
    Executive Producers
    Swede Caroline, Matar
  • T'Nia Miller
    Executive Producers
    The Fall of the House of Usher, The Haunting of Bly Manor, The Peripheral, Sex Education
  • Dan Hubbard
    Executive Producers
    The Gentlemen, Captain Phillips, King Kong
  • Dale McCready
    Cinematographer
    The Witcher, Day of the Jackal
  • Joshua Cunliffe
    Editor
    My Lady Jane, His Dark Materials
  • Oliver Doherty
    Costume Designer
    Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Matrix Resurrections
  • Gemma Hoff
    HMU Designer
    The Brutalist, Pieces of a Woman
  • Charlotte Partt
    Composer
    This Sucks, Essentially Painless
  • Paddy Eason
    VFX Producer
    Sleepy Hollow, Fantastic Mr Fox, Ammonite
  • Harrison Clark
    Production Designer
    Sister Wives, Full Fat
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Comedy, LGBTQ+
  • Runtime:
    19 minutes 58 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    April 30, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    25,000 GBP
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Charlotte Serena Cooper

Charlotte is an LGBTQ+ writer and director who has spent the past seven years working as a script supervisor on some of the UK’s biggest film and television productions. Her credits include 'Barbie', 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness', 'Ant-Man 3', 'Venom 3', and 'Mission: Impossible', as well as a wide range of acclaimed independent films and high-end TV series.

Working alongside renowned directors such as Sam Raimi and Greta Gerwig, Charlotte has had the opportunity to refine her own directorial voice while immersed in world-class creative environments.

Before moving into large-scale productions, she directed a number of fringe theatre productions and created the award-winning web series Tour Girls.

'Bury Your Gays' marks Charlotte's directorial film debut, and she's excited to bring many more stories to life in the future.

In 2025, Charlotte co-founded Charge Films with producer Charlotte Brownlee. Charge Films aims to champion and amplify female voices in film and TV, by producing distinctive and lively stories that you won’t forget in a hurry.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Think of any LGBTQ+ character from film, TV, or literature. Odds are, they’re closeted, depressed, bullied, abused, ill—or worse... a gay best friend.

"Bury Your Gays" is a trope in film, TV, and literature where LGBTQ+ characters are disproportionately killed off—often in tragic or premature ways—and rarely given happy endings. Their deaths usually serve to advance the plot or the development of straight characters. The trope highlights a broader issue where queer characters are shown less often and are frequently denied joy, survival, or fulfilment.

I wrote Bury Your Gays as a direct response to the industry’s fixation with doomed and tragic gays. Our film exposes a trope that’s been hiding in plain sight, shedding light on the fact that LGBTQ+ storytelling still has a long way to go.

We were fortunate that the script attracted an exceptional, well-known cast, all united by their shared passion for improving queer representation and storytelling. Equally important, we were proud to have a predominantly LGBTQ+ crew, reflecting our commitment to authentic representation both in front of and behind the camera.

My hope is that this short film not only entertains but also empowers audiences to recognise when the trope is used, identify underdeveloped queer characters in films, and appreciate the richness and diversity of queer lives, far beyond the limited portrayals often seen on screen.