Four Itchy Boys

Four Itchy Boys began as a dark satire inspired by my decade working in advertising—a world where brands chase attention, manufacture controversy, and transform real people into content.
Today, anyone can become famous overnight for almost any reason—even something as absurd as being hot and mysteriously itchy.

But what started as satire gradually revealed something deeper. Beneath the spectacle, the film became a story about fear, otherness, and what happens when society projects its anxieties onto people it doesn't understand. The boys at the center of our story aren't dangerous, yet they find themselves trapped inside a narrative they didn't create—forced to defend their humanity while the public debates whether they deserve empathy at all. As a queer filmmaker from the South, I found this tension all too familiar: the experience of being scrutinized, misunderstood, and asked to justify your existence to people who have already decided who you are.

Visually and tonally, we wanted the film to reflect the overwhelming pressure our characters experience. The result is loud, colorful, absurd, frightening, and intentionally unpredictable—a collision of horror, dark comedy, and conspiracy thriller. We invite audiences into a larger mythology without providing every answer, trusting them to engage with the story rather than passively consume it.

Most of all, we wanted to create a film that lingers. One that entertains in the moment but continues to provoke conversation afterward. Why are the boys itchy? What is Project Mirage? Who is really exploiting whom? The answers matter less than the discussions they inspire.

In a festival landscape filled with remarkable films, we hope Four Itchy Boys offers something memorable: a visceral audience experience wrapped around a timely story about the dangers of turning human beings into spectacle.