Lucio Castro Serves Desire in Drunken Noodles

Lucio Castro’s “Drunken Noodles” returns in limited release with a warm, flirtatious energy—rooted in two summers in New York and upstate woods, shaped by a real artist and filmed in Williamsburg on 16mm-inspired digital imagery.

When “Drunken Noodles” opens, it doesn’t rush you. It draws you into a haze of summer heat and late-night longing—one timeline slipping into another—while Adnan moves through New York like someone searching for connection in every doorway.

Lucio Castro’s latest film. his third feature. is now in limited release from Strand. and it’s also playing at New York’s IFC Center as it continues to expand across the United States. The picture premiered in the ACID section at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival more than a year ago. and Castro says the choice to enter that smaller strand ended up being the right gamble.

Castro, an Argentine-turned-Brooklyn filmmaker, is used to making films that feel intimate and slightly off-balance. His directorial debut. “End of the Century” (2019). carried a “Before Sunrise”-style romance through Cubist-painting treatment. with a casual gay encounter echoing across multiple timelines. “Drunken Noodles” builds its own kind of magic—warm mysticism. playful talkiness. and erotic curiosity—while reaching back to influences Castro clearly loves.

Asked about references over lunch ahead of the film’s release. Castro told IndieWire. “Always Rohmer.” He said he likes “the simplicity of Rohmer’s dialogue. ” even as he jokes about the comfort and privilege of “it’s very white people problems”—like wondering which European city you’re going to spend the summer. For “Drunken Noodles. ” he was most inspired by Rohmer’s “Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle. ” a picaresque quartet of sketches about a mischievous female friendship in Paris.

The film itself unfolds in the haze of two discrete summers—on the streets of New York City and in the forest wood of upstate New York. Adnan (newcomer Laith Khalifeh) has a series of intimate, even supernatural, time-and-space-warping intellectual and sexual encounters.

One thread revolves around an artist named Sal (Ezriel Kornel), based on the real New York-based artist Sal Salandra. Castro uses Sal Salandra’s needlework “painter” practice—embroidering homoerotic images—as the spark for several of the film’s “Drunken Noodles” set pieces.

Castro said he first went to Salandra’s home in 2021 with the intention of making a documentary. but the process shifted. “I had gone to his house in 2021 with the intention of doing a documentary. but I found when I was asking him questions. I was performing. ” Castro said. He decided to build a narrative feature instead. explaining: “I’m not a documentarian really. so I’m more interested in lying about it. and the truth that comes from that.”.

In that same conversation, Castro described fantasy as a deeply queer storytelling tool—“very innately queer, especially male queer … that drive could also be turned into something horny, [about] desire, openness, curiosity.”

The year’s festival path also shaped the film’s reception. Castro said “Drunken Noodles” was submitted to other Cannes sections. “but ACID said yes first. ” and he called that decision the best one. He also said the support made it feel like a place where the work could breathe. Feedback since has been positive. with special attention from gay audiences—people hoping to relive the “End of the Century” highs and its glisteningly tender eroticism. Even a Letterboxd user described “Drunken Noodles” as “inland empire for twinks who refuse to get off of sniffies.”.

There are multiple connections within the story, and each one feels designed to pull you forward. Adnan hooks up with a DoorDash delivery driver (Joél Isaac) in one timeline. with a possibility of more than just bodily fluids. Another timeline flashes back to a dead-ending relationship with an ex (Matthew Risch), which takes an eerie turn.

The filmmaking itself matches the mood—loud enough to feel alive, controlled enough to stay intimate. Castro said. “I found the actors before I wrote.” He also added. “I found locations and actors before I wrote the movie to see what I could play with.” Several young performers came through the Backstage casting portal. He returns to the look and texture again and again, including how he crafted images.

“We shot it in Williamsburg, which is the least romantic neighborhood in the world,” Castro said. He called the city challenge a creative problem worth solving: “It’s very easy to make beautiful images with a 16mm camera. but I like the challenge of doing it in digital. in a part of the city that’s not maybe the most photogenic.” Castro said he works with cinematographer Barton Cortright to craft lush images that “certainly evoke the illusion of celluloid. ” giving the film a nostalgic. charmingly retro take on sexuality.

Castro’s own perspective on New York helps explain why the camera lingers rather than pounces. “New York is a city that’s crowded. but it’s also a really intimate city. a city where you can find your own little place. ” he said. He moved to New York City at the end of the 1990s, graduating with a fashion degree from Parsons. He added that getting a visa for film “is a bit difficult,” so he “started to go into design.”.

That mix—intimacy, imagination, and the push-pull between wanting and knowing—has been present in Castro’s work for years. And it’s also tied to what he’s carrying personally.

Soon, he’s headed back to Argentina to shoot a movie in his home country for the first time. He called it “by far my most personal film. ” and said it will look more closely at the “big. tragic death” that changed his life when he was around 21. He also promised the new film will be humorous and will explore relationships outside a queer lens.

Castro described the loss with a steady, difficult clarity. “Right before, my dad was really depressed. He was in the military, a really complicated story, and had access to guns. Very few people could get guns. He could. He was a really intelligent guy. He was a nuclear physicist but always bound to depression. My mom wanted to leave him, so you know, there was definitely something in the air,” he said.

He then returned to the morning of the tragedy. “I finished an exam, went out partying, and came back at 6 a.m., and saw there was something eerie in the light,” Castro said. He added that his father killed himself and then Castro’s mother in 1997.

“I never knew what to do with that. It’s so strong, it’s so self-contained as a dramatic event,” Castro said. He described going back to Argentina “a couple of weeks a year” and observing how “that death and the old life and everything starts changing and mutating in every visit.”

For now. “Drunken Noodles” is the present tense—two summers at once. desire threaded through art. and a filmmaker who keeps insisting that romance can be mystical without becoming unreachable. It’s playing at the IFC Center in New York and will continue to expand in the United States. letting Castro’s warm. unexpectedly uplifting approach find its audience—one tender. time-bending encounter at a time.

Lucio Castro Drunken Noodles Strand IFC Center Cannes 2025 ACID section Berlinale premiere End of the Century After His Death Laith Khalifeh Ezriel Kornel Sal Salandra Joél Isaac Matthew Risch Barton Cortright Williamsburg