This poster for the 1980 New Zealand drama Squeeze shows how a low-budget film with gay themes was marketed six years before homosexuality was decriminalised in New Zealand. It plays up the ‘disturbing, controversial and revealing’ story in its taglines, paired with an enigmatic close-up of a young man’s face.

Directed by New Zealand-born Australian Richard Turner, Squeeze offered an early portrait of Auckland’s gay scene and allowed urban NZ gay and bisexual men a rare opportunity to see their lives portrayed on screen. It starred Robert Shannon as Grant, a bisexual business executive torn between his fiancée, Joy (Donna Akersten), and his boyfriend, Paul (Paul Eady).

The film was lucky to get made at all. The New Zealand Film Commission refused funding, so the filmmakers raised the $100,000 budget entirely through donations from Auckland’s gay and lesbian community. Squeeze premiered in Auckland in July 1980, screened at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1980, and had its Australian launch at the Filmmakers Cinema in Sydney in February 1981.

The poster was designed by Leonie Lane through the Lucifoil Poster Collective and printed at the Tin Sheds Art Workshop.