Melting Point, 2022
Melting Point is an award-winning queer erotic short that captures the heat between two lovers, literally. Shot with a digital thermal camera, the film records the scene using temperature instead of light, revealing new ways of seeing pleasure, play, and desire.
Inspired by my own erotic re-awakening as I entered into a polyamorous relationship and discovered that I’m queer, I’ve been making work exploring how women can connect with our erotic selves through a series of projects called Erospace.
Melting Point shows the dance of the erotic through the female gaze and an unusual lens. Two female lovers come together in sensual and sexual play—only the scene is filmed with a thermal camera, which records temperature instead of light. Purple and black represent cold, while orange, red, and white show heat. The warmth of a hot shower, the extreme cold of ice cubes sliding across skin, and the literal heat of two bodies coming together are transformed into unexpected explosions of color. The resulting experiment allows us to see women’s sexual pleasure differently, and the joy that is possible when we are honest about who we are and what we want.
Melting Point had its in-person World Premiere at Frameline: The San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival in June 2022. It has gone on to screen in dozens of festivals around the world, winning Best Erotic Short at the Peephole Film Fest in Guadalajara, Mexico, and Best Experimental Short at the Orchid Lesbian International Film Festival in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Other festival screenings in include New York's CineKink, Out On Film: Atlanta's LGBTQ Film Festival, Porn Film Festival Berlin, Seattle Queer Film Festival, Porny Days Film Art Festival in Zurich, Melbourne Queer Film Festival, Queer Film Festival Weimar, The Little Queer Festival in Leipzig, the Bee Festival in Brazil, The Bush Films in New York City, Porn Film Festival Vienna, Immaginaria (Lesbians and Other Rebellious Women) in Rome, London Lesbian Film Festival, Athens Porn Film Festival, Post-Porn Warsaw, Muestra de Cine Erótico y PosPorno de Bogotá, Queerstreift Festival, the Erotic Art and Film Festival, the San Francisco PornFilmFestival, Erotic Edge in India, Le Fesses-tival in Geneva, PORNights in Schikaneder, Queerotics: Queer Film Festival 2023, Queer Film Festival Bremen, Queer Film Festival Munich, OsloErotic, MIX Copenhagen LGBTQIA+ Film Festival, and others.
Melting Point was included on the list of Best Films of 2022 on the independent adult platform PinkLabel.TV, where it is now available for streaming.
2022. Directed by Mindy Stricke
Runtime: 5 min.
Country: Canada
“The title for most visually stunning ‘Constant Craving’ short would have to go to Mindy Stricke’s ‘Melting Point’...the colorful and abstract images turn the sex act into a glorious explosion of riotous motion and color. Instead of the two women having to fake getting turned on for the camera, the images of their body heat lets the viewer see the reality of their physical arousal. The result is a piece whose images happily occupy the liminal space between surface concealment and visual abstraction.”