One of the earliest documentaries to deal with AIDS.
Social & External
Two adventurous women in love are desperate to have their own biological child. They take a chance on an experimental scientific process and make sperm from their own stem cells. Pregnant with humor and unexpected twists, their journey ultimately confirms that all life is a gift and all families are crazy.
Exuberant, eye-opening movie that serves up a dazzling hundred-year history of the role of gay men and lesbians have had on the silver screen. Film contains fabulous footage from 120 films showing the changing face of cinema sexuality, from cruel stereotypes to covert love to the activist triumphs of the 1990s.
New York City's Stonewall Inn is regarded by many as the site of gay and lesbian liberation since it was at this bar that drag queens fought back against police June 27-28, 1969. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal recollections to construct an audiovisual history of the gay community before the Stonewall riots.
Wes Hurley's autobiographical tale of growing up gay in Soviet Union Russia, only to escape with his mother, a mail order bride, to Seattle to face a whole new oppression in his new Christian fundamentalist American dad.
In the 50s and 60s, deep in the American countryside at the foot of the Catskills, a small wooden house with a barn behind it was home to the first clandestine network of cross-dressers. Diane and Kate are now 80 years old. At the time, they were men and part of this secret organization. Today, they relate this forgotten but essential chapter of the early days of trans-identity. It is a story full of noise and fury, rich in extraordinary characters, including the famous Susanna, who had the courage to create this refuge that came to be known as Casa Susanna.
Tailor is a transgender cartoonist that shares in his web page other trans people’s experiences and their challenges in society. Film about transgender, made by transgender crew.
Explores the lives of Sara, Gigi and Giovanna, three Latino transvestites who for years have lived on the streets of Manhattan supporting their drug addictions through prostitution. They made their temporary home inside broken garbage trucks that the Sanitation Department keeps next to the salt deposits used in the winter to melt the snow. The three friends share the place known as "The Salt Mines".
Ricardo was once Sara, a homeless HIV positive transvestite, living in the underbelly of Manhattan. Today he is a churchgoing, married man, "saved" by a Dallas ministry. He has renounced his homosexuality, but is his conversion complete? Susana Aiken and Carlos Aparicio offer an intimate look at Ricardo's transformation.
A deliciously scandalous portrait of unsung Hollywood legend Scotty Bowers, whose bestselling memoir chronicled his decades spent as sexual procurer to the stars.
A personal documentary about gay marriage in Brazil that focuses on the filmmaker Fábia Sartori Fuzeti, who opens the film by proposing to her partner Gabriela Torrezani. The movie follows their footsteps from that moment until their big day. At the same time, it explores the lives various gay and lesbian couples that got tied the knot since the Brazilian Supreme Court legalised gay marriage in June 2011.
After a traumatic encounter, a young gay Egyptian joins the LGBT rights movement. When his safety is jeopardized, he must choose whether to stay in the country he loves or seek asylum elsewhere as a refugee. "Half a Life" is a timely story of activism and hope, set in the increasingly dangerous, oppressive, and unstable social climate of Egypt today.
Made during the last months of actor Kurt Raab, who died of AIDS in 1988. Raab, who had worked in both theatre and film, most notably with Fassbinder, was in the process of making a series of video sketches for a new production when he learned that he had AIDS. Despite his deteriorating health, and with the caring support of his friend Hans Hirshmuller, he carried on working. This tape is his last testimony.
Freddie Mercury (1946-91) was not just a man with one of the most pure and amazing voices the world has heard, but he was also the lead singer for Queen, the most enthusiastic rock band in history.
A stark documentary about young male prostitutes in Prague, aged 15 to 18, who work the streets, train stations, and clubs. Through candid interviews and behind-the-scenes footage of gay porn shoots, the film explores their lives, struggles, and dreams, touching on themes of exploitation, identity, AIDS, and survival.
A shocking look at how a recent anti-gay amendment to a Russian propaganda law has led to increased assaults on gay men and women. In modern-day Russia, where it is estimated that just 1% of the LGBT population lives completely openly, a recent anti-gay amendment to a “propaganda” law has been followed by a rising number of assaults on gay men and women by vigilantes who, more often than not, go unpunished for their crimes.
This follow-up to the 1989 documentary ONE YEAR IN A LIFE OF CRIME revisits three of the original subjects in New Jersey during a five-year period in the 1990s. We share in their triumphs and setbacks as they navigate lives of poverty, drug abuse, AIDS, and petty crime.
The director meets Amir and Ramzi in a café in a small Tunisian town. They don't want to be seen there. They have to find a discreet place to talk. Like many other gay couples in Tunisia, Amir and Ramzi are living a nightmare since the Tunisian Revolution. With them, the director will discover the daily life of the Tunisian homosexual couples, even in the discrete parties organized in hotels of the country.
Monika Treut explores the worlds and thoughts of several female to male transgendered individuals. As with Treuts first film, Jungfrauenmaschine, Gendernauts, enters a minority sector of San Fransisco culture. The characters in this film have a lot to complain about, and they do. They are people whose physical appearance (female) does not match their inner sexual identity (male). The subject is pinpointed in the film independant of sexual orientation. Leave your conservative hats at the door, this is going to need your special attention.
Paid 50 dollars for their time, 101 male prostitutes -- spanning all ages, ethnicities, and personal backgrounds -- are questioned by the filmmakers about their lives.
Though legendary lyricist Howard Ashman died far too young, his impact on Broadway, movies, and the culture at large were incalculable. Told entirely through rare archival footage and interviews with Ashman’s family, friends, associates, and longtime partner Bill Lauch, Howard is an intimate tribute to a once-in-a-generation talent and a rousing celebration of musical storytelling itself.
A story of two coalitions – ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group) – whose activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition. Despite having no scientific training, these self-made activists infiltrated the pharmaceutical industry and helped identify promising new drugs, moving them from experimental trials to patients in record time.
This searing investigative work shadows a group of activists risking unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ program raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic. Unfettered access and a remarkable approach to protecting anonymity exposes this under-reported atrocity–and an extraordinary group of people confronting evil.
The life of internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin is told through her slideshows, intimate interviews, ground-breaking photography, and rare footage of her personal fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the overdose crisis.
An investigation of how Hollywood's fabled stories have deeply influenced how Americans feel about transgender people, and how transgender people have been taught to feel about themselves.
Those who knew iconic funnyman John Candy best share his story, in their own words, through never-before-seen archival footage, imagery, and interviews.
A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.
Where does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City's African American and Latinx Harlem drag-ball scene. Made over seven years, PARIS IS BURNING offers an intimate portrait of rival fashion "houses," from fierce contests for trophies to house mothers offering sustenance in a world rampant with homophobia, transphobia, racism, AIDS, and poverty. Featuring legendary voguers, drag queens, and trans women — including Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza.
Marlon Riggs, with assistance from other gay Black men, especially poet Essex Hemphill, celebrates Black men loving Black men as a revolutionary act. The film intercuts footage of Hemphill reciting his poetry, Riggs telling the story of his growing up, scenes of men in social intercourse and dance, and various comic riffs, including a visit to the "Institute of Snap!thology," where men take lessons in how to snap their fingers: the sling snap, the point snap, the diva snap.
In a warehouse in the heart of Los Angeles, a dwindling handful of devoted craftspeople maintain more than 80,000 student musical instruments, the largest remaining workshop in America of its kind. Meet four unforgettable characters whose broken-and-repaired lives have been dedicated to bringing so much more than music to the schoolchildren of this city.
Live Aid was held on 13 July 1985, simultaneously in Wembley Stadium in London, England, and the John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, United States. It was one of the largest scale satellite link-ups and television broadcasts of all time: watched live by an estimated global audience of 1.9 billion, across 150 nations. "It's twelve noon in London, seven AM in Philadelphia, and around the world it's time for Live Aid...!"
The surprising and entertaining life of renowned film critic and social commentator Roger Ebert (1942-2013): his early days as a freewheeling bachelor and Pulitzer Prize winner, his famously contentious partnership with Gene Siskel, his life-altering marriage, and his brave and transcendent battle with cancer.
Brilliant, long in-the-works story of the life and art of the world's greatest comedian and the cinema's first genius, Charlie Chaplin. Produced, written and directed by renowned film critic Richard Schickel.
Throughout the 1950s, Tab Hunter reigned as Hollywood’s ultimate male heartthrob. But throughout his years of stardom, Tab had a secret. Tab Hunter was gay, and spent his Hollywood years in a precarious closet that repeatedly threatened to implode and destroy him. Tab Hunter himself shares first hand, for the first time, what it was like to be a studio manufactured movie star during the Golden Age of Hollywood and the consequences of being someone totally different from his studio manufactured image.
The life and career of an actor, artist, and icon. His own journey through his own camera.
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
In the 1970s, five men struggling with being gay in their Evangelical church started a bible study to help each other leave the "homosexual lifestyle." They quickly received over 25,000 letters from people asking for help and formalized as Exodus International, the largest and most controversial conversion therapy organization in the world. But leaders struggled with a secret: their own “same-sex attractions” never went away. After years as Christian superstars in the religious right, many of these men and women have come out as LGBTQ, disavowing the very movement they helped start. Focusing on the dramatic journeys of former conversion therapy leaders, current members, and a survivor, PRAY AWAY chronicles the “ex gay" movement’s rise to power, persistent influence, and the profound harm it causes.
For decades, a nice Jewish couple ran Circus of Books, a porn shop and epicenter for gay LA. Their director daughter documents their life and times.
