Pillion, about the BDSM relationship between a gay biker and a timid parking, kickstarted an exuberant eight-minute ovation from the audience that included Pedro Pascal after its premiere Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival.
The kinky pic from British first-time feature writer-director Harry Lighton follows the burgeoning odd-couple pairing of the handsome and charismatic Ray (Alexander Skarsgård) and introverted but curious Colin (Harry Melling). The biker gang leader introduces Colin to his community and takes him on as his sexual submissive.
In his Deadline review, Glenn Garner wrote: “Beneath the unabashed sexual content, Lighton’s debut is all romance, kicking off with a French rendition of ‘I Will Follow Him,’ foreshadowing the hopeless devotion Colin develops for Ray in their dom/sub relationship. … Skarsgård understood the assignment, slipping seamlessly into his role as the sexually dominant yet elusive Ray, who’s fearless in communicating his every desire, but emotionally closed off to any real intimacy as the leader of a gay biker gang.”
‘Pillion’ stars Alexander Skarsgard and Harry Melling at a #Cannes2025 photocall.
The Harry Lighton film premiered this morning in Un Certain Regard
(Earl Gibson) pic.twitter.com/Gh8nckk8LD
— Deadline (@DEADLINE) May 18, 2025
The screenplay was developed with BBC Film and is based on Adam Mars-Jones’ Box Hill, which was the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Nobel Prize winner. A24 picked up U.S. distribution rights to Pillion in October.
It is an Element Pictures production financed by BBC Film, BFI — which awarded it National Lottery funding — in association with Fremantle, Picturehouse Entertainment and September Film; the latter two will handle distribution in the UK and Benelux, respectively. Memento will bring it to France cinemas.
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