Gustavo Vinagre’s Three Tidy Tigers Tied a Tie Tighter started its festival run at NYFF. And that run continues today with the Vancouver Queer Film Festival this year. Here, Jonata (Jonata Vieira) travels from Minas Gerais to Sao Paulo, a treacherous journey when the Omicron variant hit Brazil. He stays with his step uncle Pedro (Pedro Ribeiro) and the latter’s student roommate Isabella (Isabella Pereira) all three are of the same age. He’s supposed to pick up his PEP, but he has two days in Sao Paulo, and all have enough time to go to places Pedro needs to be.

As Isabella and Jonata tag along with Pedro, Three Tidy Tigers Tied a Tie Tighter is a litmus test of people’s past and present reactions during the pandemic. Which one of the three protagonists take off their masks first as they enter the home of one of Pedro’s sex work clients, Omar? Do they do so begrudgingly, or only take their mask off the take in the fumes of the joint they’re smoking? Isabella and Jonata cuddle while high. The images here seem innocuous but they comment on the spaces in which queer people inhabit especially during and after COVID.

Three Tidy Tigers Tied a Tie Tighter‘s is its best and worst during its third act. A trip to an antique store turns into a cabaret environment where dead LGBT2+ people and their allies come to life. But it turns into the weirdest orgy put on film so far, and my complains about this act is less about the orgy and me being a prude. It concerns more with the order in which things happen to make that act more efficient. But at its best, the film as a whole is a love letter to our shifting communities.