WATCH: Gays play it straight in order to become an unlikely family in this Oscar contender

Earlier this year, Macedonian-Australian filmmaker Goran Stolevski melted our hearts with the intimate, aching gay romance Of An Age. The year prior, he made our skin crawl with the witchy folk horror You Won’t Be Alone.

And now, he shifts gears once again, telling a lovely and kinetic story about found family, proving there’s not much he can’t do—Stolevski just might be one of the most unpredictable and exciting young directors working today.

His latest, Housekeeping For Beginners, takes us back to his homeland, specifically Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia. It’s there we meet an eclectic group of people, all living under one roof.

There’s Dita (4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days‘ Anamaria Marinca), a healthcare worker, her loving parter Suada (Alina Serban), Suada’s two children—feisty teen Vanessa (Mia Mustafa) and the adorable Mia (Dzada Selim)—and even Dita’s longtime gay BFF Toni (Vladimir Tintor). Oh, Toni’s got a young boy toy named Ali (Samson Selim) who’s hanging around now, too.

It’s a full house!

However—and we promise we’re not giving away anything here that’s not clearly telegraphed in the trailer—we soon learn that Suada is very, very sick. Before she passes, she asks Dita to continue caring for her children.

Though she never planned to be a mother, Dita now finds herself without a partner, and two young, grieving girls to look after. On top of that, a homophobic legal system threatens to tear them apart, so Dita convinces a reluctant Toni to act as the father of their children, and they’re both forced to play it straight while in public. His younger lover Ali is still hanging around, too, for the record.

Complicating matters is the fact that teenaged Vanessa, still despondent over her mother’s death, lashes out at Dita and Toni and runs away from home, eventually calling authorities and claiming she’s been kidnapped by a gay cult.

If it all sounds a little bit melodramatic, that’s because it is—but Housekeeping For Beginners maintains a real warmth and sneaky sense of humor, buoyed by a strong cast and Stolevski’s nimble direction, making the whole thing feel beautifully and messily human.

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Meet the smokin’ hot Aussie actors heating up the screen in this sexy gay coming-of-age romance

Valentine’s Day might’ve came and went, but the romantic movie event of the season is about to hit theaters.

After premiering at the Venice Film Festival this past September—where it won the Queer Lion, the fest’s top honor for LGBTQ+ stories—it was quickly selected by Macedonia to be the country’s official submission for Best International Feature Film at the upcoming Oscars.

Next, the film heads to select U.S. theaters beginning January 26, courtesy of Focus Features. Check out the first official trailer for the film below: