With My Boyfriend the Fascist (Matthais Lintner, 2025), cinema finally provides us with another Cuban emigre who hates communists just as much as Scarface’s (Brian De Palma, 1983) Tony Montana. Having moved to Italy at the tender age of 18, activist Sadiel burns with an incandescent rage whenever the regime is mentioned. His rants are the centrepiece of Lintner’s tender and nuanced film, exploring how, just like Al Pacino, the hatred of one thing can often lead to the embrace of something else entirely. Something far more nefarious.
This is a playful and smart documentary, shot by Sadiel’s own boyfriend, the gentle Matthais. He is certainly very much in love with the fiery Cuban (the film opens with him appearing to give Sadiel head somewhere in the South Tyrolean Alps), but finds this hard to reconcile with his own leftist beliefs. By turning the camera inwards, capturing their intimate moments and embarassing arguments, Lintner provides a warts-and-all exploration of what it means to be in a relationship with someone that you disagree with on a deep and fundamental level.
The term “fascist” appears to be a bit tongue-in-cheek, with Sadiel’s journey a fascinating exploration of how seemingly honourable causes can be co-opted by self-centred right-wing interests. Sadiel is certainly not a one-note character — and does exhibit some kind of growth and self-realisation by the end of the movie — but in his most furious moments, he appears completely blinded by his own beliefs. It gets to the point that he cannot accept even the singlest nugget of criticism; his world a simple collection of binaries: Communists and fascists are the same, the left doesn’t care about political repression in Cuba at all, and only parties such as Fratelli d’Italia, led by current prime minister Georgia Meloni, actually care about Cuba at all.
Of course, far-right political parties will talk the talk on Cuba — being stringently anti-communist is going to win you votes — but this doesn’t mean that they actually care about Cuban people. Yet at the same time, if your life is centred completely around the liberation of your people, and if the left doesn’t appear to care about repression in Cuba whatsoever, then making deals with the right seems like your only option left. In this sense, My Boyfriend the Fascist makes a salient point, applicable worldwide — in order to beat the fascists, you have to, unfortunately, understand why they are mad in the first place.
Redmond is the editor-in-chief of Journey Into Cinema.