A gay-themed NZ short film has been selected for screening at the prestigious Montreal International Film Festival, surprising and delighting its first-time writer. Welby Ings is an associate professor at the Auckland University of Technology. The film, Boy, tells the story of 14-year-old Sam living in small-town New Zealand. Ings, an award-winning playwright, designer and illustrator, believes the film's appeal is in its unusual treatment of the subject matter – the characters don't speak. He says young heterosexual men's emerging sexuality was commonly explored in film and television, but their gay equivalent was generally avoided or portrayed as neutral, or as the victim of paedophilia.