Flesh and Fuel
2026

Flesh and Fuel

Hit the road with hunky truckers whose hot and heavy hook-up in a roadside beat leads to unexpected depths. Pierre Le Gall’s haunting debut feature is a luminous insight into life, lust and love all played out in a cramped truck cabin. Winner of the inaugural Queer Palm Revelation award at Cannes.

Director

Pierre Le Gall

Runtime

90 Minutes

Country

France, Poland

Classification

Unclassified 18+

Shy and gentle-hearted Étienne (Les Misérables’ Alexis Manenti) relishes the quiet, solitary life on the road as a trucker ferrying goods around French highways. Always on the go, he gets his emotional fix checking in with his sister and beloved nephew but satisfies his more animal urges with the horny dudes he picks up in service station toilets and wooded roadside beats. Almost busted by the cops with Polish driver Bartosz (Julian Świeżewski), the younger man’s sure-footed response gets them out of a scrape that could have cost them their job and their freedom. Pretty soon, they’re going at it in the cramped confines of a truck cabin. As erotic lust shifts gears into an against-the-odds romance, is this the trick that leads to something stronger? A deeply felt road movie with a difference. Winning the inaugural Queer Palm Revelation award at Cannes, debut feature director Pierre Le Gall’s understated yet unmooring vision announces an exhilarating new talent with a keen ear for working-class authenticity, not seen since Josh O’Connor’s fumbling farmer in God’s Own Country (2017).

“An unlikely road romance with plenty of heart.”

The Hollywood Reporter

“Flesh and Fuel has an inherent romanticism … which makes it feel incredibly triumphant each time Étienne and Bartosz get a chance to meet and embrace.”

Vague Visages

“Alternating between the raw and the tender, the rough-edged and the subtle.”

Cineuropa

“A dreamy debut feature from Le Gall … resulting in a gay trucker fantasy realised, that convinces us to chase the ones we love and them hold tight.”

The Queer Review

Cannes - Queer Palm Revelation

Melbourne

Film Credits

Director

Pierre Le Gall

Year

2026

Country

France & Poland

Language

EnglishFrench & Polish

Subtitles

English

Type

Feature Fiction

Program Strand

World Cinema

Producer

Nicolas Blanc

Cinematographer

Antoine Cormier

Editor

Xavier Sirven

Cast

Alexis Manenti & Julian Świeżewski

Music

Paul Sabin

Film Source

Pyramide International

Genre

DramaLGBTQIA+Road Movie & Romance

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