The debut short film from Ten Foot Pole, Palau was filmed in 2016, and has its first screening at the Equality Film Festival in Kiev, Ukraine in December 2016.

After meeting up for the first time in ten years, John’s old high school best friend Leo surprises him with a one-way ticket to Palau and tries to convince him to quit his job and leave Toronto to embark on the massive worldwide backpacking trip they always said they’d do when they were young. “They decriminalized gay sex two years ago, so you’re in the clear,” Leo tells him. Over the course of an evening on the streets of Toronto, these two recently-no-longer-young men each wrestle with their desire to reclaim the wonder and excitement of their youth with their responsibilities as adults in the present.

Cast and Crew: 

Warren Wagner (director/editor) was born in Chicago, Illinois. When he was sixteen years old, his grandparents dragged him to a memorial service for Ronald Reagan as he had just passed away and they lived one town over from where Reagan was born. It seemed like it went on for three hours and during the service Warren noticed a cute guy in the audience. By the end of the service he had worked it out in his head that he liked boys – something which had never even crossed his mind prior to that.
Ronald Reagan made him gay.
He moved to Canada when he was 19, and has been making films ever since, including Toronto: The Good, and Fresh Start.

Rob Salerno (writer/actor) is a Toronto-born writer and performer who’s been labeled a “theatrical rabble rouser” by The Globe and Mail. As the artistic director of Ten Foot Pole Theatre, a company dedicated to telling stories polite people wouldn’t touch, Rob has produced his award-winning original plays Balls, Big in Germany, Fucking Stephen Harper: How I Sexually Assaulted the 22nd Prime Minister of Canada and Saved Democracy, RAW, and First Day Back in more than thirty festivals across Canada and around the world. First Day Back earned Rob nominations for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Performance at Toronto’s 2016 Dora Awards.
Film and TV credits include Tri-Curious (dir. Matt Guerin), All Over Town (dir. Matt Thomas), and Fear Thy Neighbour.

Scott Garland (actor) is a German-born, Alberta-raised, Toronto-based actor and writer, and a George Brown Theatre school graduate with a BA from the University of Alberta. He’s acted across Canada and overseas as Harris in Pea Green Theatre’s Three Men in a Boat and is the proud curator and co-host of The Storefront Theatre’s monthly new works reading series: Sing For Your Supper. He’s also made appearances on American Lawmen, Surviving Evil and Reign.

Featuring Kat Letwin.
Sound Recording/Mixing S. Michael Ejbick
Hair and Makeup Mishka Prefontaine
First AD Christiana Herbert