Brazilian presidential hopeful Levy Fidélix claimed during a nationally televised debate in September 2014 that Brazil’s population of 200 million would be reduced by half if homosexuality were encouraged. This is because “the excretory system” does not function as a means of reproduction. He also stated that gay people “need psychological care” and should be kept “well away” from the rest of the population.

The country’s LGBT quickly noted that his mother was the living proof that his claim was wrong: the excretory system does indeed function as a means of reproduction, and Levy himself is the byproduct of such interaction. They also successfully sued him for hate speech of homophobic content.

This year Brazilian cinema then responded with Here Come the Brides, a very touching, personal documentary about gay marriage in Brazil. It focus on the filmmaker Fábia Sartori Fuzeti herself, who opens the film by proposing to her partner Gabriela Torrezani. The movie follows their footsteps from that moment until their big day. At the same time, it explores the lives various gay and lesbian couples that got tied the knot since the Brazilian Supreme Court legalised gay marriage in June 2011.

A few gay films have been made in Brazil in the past few years, such as Futuro Beach (Karim Ainouz, 2015) and The Way He Looks (Daniel Ribeiro, 2015) – just click on the name of the films in order to accede to the dirty review. Here Come the Brides is the first to investigate both the legal and the social challenges of gay marriage. Jurists explain in detail the benefits as well as the shortcomings of gay marriage in Brazil, while Gabriela gives an emotional account of her disappointment of the refusal by all of her four grandparents to attend her wedding.

The movie also includes an interview with Luciana Genro, the presidential hopeful that asked the question in the debate, which triggered Fidélix’s homophobic rant. Genro is staunchly pro-gay rights, and was the first person to raise such an issue in a presidential debate. On the days following the event, all presidential candidates (including re-elected president Dilma) criticised Fidélix’s comments.

Here Come The Brides reveals that Brazil is one of the 22 countries in the world, which universally recognise gay marriage, and yet it has the largest number of gay murders worldwide (at nearly one a day). It also shows that acceptance is quickly improving, despite fierce resistance from the ultra-conservative antediluvian evangelicals, such as Fidélix himself. They insist in associating homosexuality with anal sex in an attempt to paint gay marriage it as dirty and unnatural.

Fuzeti and Torrezani and reveal that gay marriage is far beyond sex, let alone anal sex. The only filth here is in the twisted morality of the fundamentalists.

The film is 50 minutes long and targeted primarily at television. Other countries, particularly those that are yet to legalise gay marriage, would enormously benefit from a very real, intimate and riveting love story such as this one. DMovies selected it as one of “the dirtiest Brazilian films of the past 10 years”.