The new film Don’t Come Out (No Salgas) arrives as both a personal document and a genre work rooted in the streets of Santo Domingo. Directed by Victoria Linares, the story follows Liz, who retreats from public life after the violent death of her girlfriend and a rash of killings she suspects are motivated by homophobia. This piece blends intimate memory with the mechanics of suspense, aiming to give voice to queer lives rarely seen in Dominican cinema. Linares frames the film as an attempt to speak from lived experience, not to generalise, but to fill a local absence of representation.
For Linares, the project is also a long conversation. She and co-writer Carlos Marranzini began shaping the narrative around a haunting image he offered: four girls driving at night, stained with blood, unsure what had occurred. That fragment became the seed for a script the team worked on from 2016 onwards. Making the film forced Linares to revisit the emotional terrain of her youth—particularly the trauma of being outed and the complex negotiations required to survive in a conservative environment. The final work balances visceral fear with a reflective, elegiac tone.
How memory and motive shape the story
The film treats memory as a narrative engine. Liz’s choices—especially her decision to conceal her sexuality after a brutal loss—are depicted less as plot mechanics and more as responses to social pressure. Linares often describes these responses with the language of identity: the interaction between public safety and private truth. She speaks about coming out not only as an event, but as an ongoing process that can be interrupted or reversed by violence. The result is a thriller in which the stakes are both existential and practical.
Allyship, friendship and distance
Another recurring idea in interviews is the film’s exploration of allyship. Linares emphasises that allies matter, yet being supported by straight friends does not eliminate difference; sometimes it makes it clearer. The work probes how friendships can diverge over time as people inhabit different social worlds. That divergence is not always hostile, but it is revealing—a lens through which the protagonist recognises her outsider status. The film invites viewers to consider how solidarity operates and where it falls short.
Artistic influences and the film’s tone
Linares cites several filmmakers as shaping her approach: Céline Sciamma, Lucrecia Martel and Todd Haynes. She admires their reliance on image and sound to evoke desire and tension rather than explicit explanation. This aesthetic informs the film’s use of silence, atmosphere and gesture to suggest inner life. Producer and mentor figures like Christine Vachon have also been formative; her writing helped inform Linares’s producerly decisions. The film’s resonance comes from trusting the audience with ambiguity.
From rage to nostalgia
Working on the script over many years altered Linares’s relationship to the subject matter. She says an earlier version would likely have been angrier—closer to the immediate, raw pain of being outed. Time has shifted that feeling toward a bittersweet reflection that mixes grief and longing. The creative distance allowed for nuance: grief remains, but it sits alongside memory and a longing for the possibilities that were curtailed. That tonal complexity is one of the film’s central accomplishments.
Why BFI Flare and queer festival spaces still matter
BFI Flare’s 40th edition provides the context for the film’s premiere: the festival runs 18 – 29 March at BFI Southbank, and Don’t Come Out (No Salgas) premieres on 19 March. Linares stresses the practical and symbolic importance of festivals: they create public moments where marginalised stories are visible and celebrated. In an era she describes as politically fraught—where authoritarian currents and cultural rollback are visible in many places—queer filmmaking acts as a form of resistance. Festivals offer community, recognition and the chance to imagine different futures.
When asked which cinematic ancestor she would choose to sit beside her at a screening, Linares names Todd Haynes and Cheryl Dunye, signalling a desire for connection with artists who expanded what queer cinema could look and sound like. She hopes the film will particularly resonate with lesbian viewers, sparking conversation about the costs and limits of support networks and the everyday work of survival. Above all, the film seeks to make visible an experience that was once invisible in Linares’s hometown.