Goran Stolevski drew from his own post-adolescence in his acclaimed 2022 film Of an Age , which offered a steamy, willfully messy look at two young gay men experiencing their first love.

The Macedonian-born, Australian-raised writer and directors latest cinematic offering, Housekeeping for Beginners, is a bittersweet take on a different aspect of the LGBTQ+ experience, inspired in part by a decades-old photo shared by a friend.

He posted a snapshot online of a time in his youth when he first moved to Melbourne in the 1970s, Stolevski told HuffPost. He moved in with his boyfriend and eight gay women. I saw, in this space, all these queer people in a time and place where it was a bit more complicated to be [LGBTQ+]. And I loved that sense of cocoon, of being able to live your life in a relaxed way when you normally couldnt do that. And I thought, Thats a great setting for a story.