Jim is a seventeen-year-old boxer in a small town. He’s a golden boy, preparing for a fight that will elevate him to an early professional status. All bets are on his climb to success. But his father Stan is a demanding coach and a notorious alcoholic. As Jim begins to rethink why he is fighting, his life tangles with Whetu, a razor-tongued, gay Maori boy who spends his days in an old shack with his dog Moimoi where he cobbles together a fragile glamour and dreams of leaving town to become a musician. Away from the rainbow flags and Pride parades, Jim and Whetu must navigate isolation, hypocrisy, the brutality of small-town boxing, and an anonymous queer bashing that no one will talk about. As Jim stumbles towards discovering what it really is to be a gay man, he is forced to understand that strength has little to do with heroism.

A boy has to decide just how far he’s willing to go to maintain a new friendship in this offbeat coming of age-drama. Billy (Andrew Paterson) is a 12-year-old boy growing up in a farming community in New Zealand in the ’70s. Billy’s slight weight problem, his flamboyant personality, and his fondness for costume play has made him a target for bullies at his one-room school, and his only friend is Lou (Harriet Beattie), his tomboy cousin who prefers to play football with the boys and is dreading the onset of adolescence. As Billy resigns himself to his status as an outcast, he’s assigned a new deskmate — a new arrival in town named Roy (Jay Collins). Roy is a few years older than Billy, and takes an immediate liking to him; however, while Billy is a bit fuzzy about the practicalities of being gay (something he’s accused of on a regular basis), Roy seems to have a good bit of practical knowledge of the subject and seems keen on pursuing a physical relationship with his new pal. As Billy is torn between happiness at having a new friend and confusion about Roy’s level of interest in him, he discovers Roy is also attracted to Jamie (Michael Dorman), who has just hired on to work at the farm owned by Billy’s dad. 50 Ways of Saying Fabulous was given its North American premier at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival.