Futuro Beach admittedly hasn’t got the widest release this week. With 15, 20 even 25 films released every week in the UK nowadays, it’s easy to see why this small, intimate foreign-language drama may have slipped through the cracks. However this by no means undermines its power and importance. Filmed in both Germany and Brazil – with the dialogue switching between German and Portuguese – the film follows Donato (Wagner Mouro), a lifeguard who works at the eponymous Futuro Beach, and Konrad (Clemens Schick), a German biker, who fall in love after meeting in Brazil. However, after Donato leaves his livelihood and family for Berlin, their relationship and lives alter dramatically.

What is obvious from the start is the film's subtle yet skilful direction by Karim Aïnouz. I haven’t seen a film in a long time that has such a fantastic understanding and use of place; whether it’s an erotically charged topless scene by a rocky sea front, a dance scene in a modern Berlin nightclub or an emotional talk on a rooftop, Aïnouz combines plot, character and setting with veritable ease.

Moreover, despite being a fairly dialogue-light film, mainly due to the protagonists’ linguistic differences, the audience is still able to get a huge sense of the intricacies of their relationship. It’s almost as if Aïnouz is deliberately showing us snapshots of their relationship, leaving moments to be filled in by our imagination. Nonetheless, helped by the tender and human performances of the two leads, it’s a relationship whose complications we understand.

However, the minimality of the film's dialogue, while generally successful, does sometimes come at a cost. Aïnouz often keeps the audience at a distance, not allowing us to fully experience the relationship between these two men, clearly in an attempt to mirror the characters’ own isolation. This patient and subtle style of filmmaking often runs into alienation, proving frustrating in some scenes.

Yet what is most impressive about the film is its relationship with its characters’ sexuality. While it is extremely open and honest, reminiscent of recent films such as Blue is the Warmest Colour and Stranger at the Lake, it never focuses on their sexuality; it never makes it an issue. Instead the film’s aim is simply to tell a love story between two people, from different countries and backgrounds, regardless of their being gay, straight, or anything else. And while Futuro Beach is hardly going to take the box office by storm, it marks the progression of cinema’s attitude towards homosexuality as a mere character trait, rather than an awards-grabbing, attention-seeking focus point.

Futuro Beach is currently showing in cinemas across the UK.