Here, where even monsters are political, the topography has its own memory. It has the mythological blues. Meanwhile, old gods are upset with us, and I am upset with my father.
Social & External
The people behind it
Emin Şimşek
Man with the Jacket
After the death of my only brother I found rolls of undeveloped film. This documentary is a reenactment of those stills and an exploration of the aspects of my brother's life that I didn't know.
Finding community via his gay rugby league, Jamaican-born Desmond navigates life, love, and identity as an immigrant living in Munich, Germany.
Ninja is famous around the world for her fierce ballroom performances, but she is not as well-known in her native country of French Guyana. But a trip home to teach a workshop might change that.
Are You Proud? is a vivid and engaged docu-celebration of the LGBT rights movement from the partial victory of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act to Stonewall, the Gay Liberation Front , the AIDS crisis, Legal Marriage and finally the 2016 Pulse night club shooting. The film gives an extensive history of the course of LGBT rights campaigning, but it also shows how much more work there is to be done.
Janie Geiser takes us along on her search for the original meaning of the word 'algebra' with the help of a remarkable series of found objects, medical illustrations and a rich variety of animation techniques.
Cosmic horror explores the elements and matter of so-called inanimate nature, which become actors and form a new ecosystem. A stream of depictions of fluid materials embedded into each other is accompanied by an unsettling soundtrack that reinforces the uncertainty of whether we are watching a cosmogonic or eschatological vision.
Narrative of the process of building an identity as a trans illustrator who uses monstrous images to communicate his feelings.
Eight iconic performers of the first generation of Brazilian transvestite artists go on stage to celebrate their 50th career jubilee. The film depicts the human, personal dimension behind these icons, deconstructing gender stereotypes.
It’s the resilience and love that keeps this community marching to the beat of its own drum; each generation redefining what it means to be queer and to be seen.
Recalling his childhood and relationship with his mother, a film student tries to understand the origin of his love for cinema and tragedies.
Forty-seven-year-old Jim Alter pursued manly roles so successfully for so long -- playing football, starting a family, running auto-shop and construction businesses, hanging with the guys -- that the shock was total when he announced he would now cross-dress (and, eventually, undergo sex-change surgery) as a woman. Reactions range from his mother's earnest bewilderment to the scandalized fury of in-laws. Only wife of 25 years Brenda retrospectively sees signs she'd ignored of the cross-dressing, then hormone-taking "alter ego" he managed to keep secret for decades.
Focuses on one of the most talked about and important issues of our time – how to find yourself and your truth. It follows model and transgender activist Munroe Bergdorf’s journey and provides hope for those facing similar challenges.
While global capitalism is a defining feature of our times, many engage in an anti-capitalist resistance. MARKET THIS! is a timely documentary that explores the desire for radical politics and culture in the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Two-Spirited and Transgender community. The documentary began in 1999 after the Queeruption gathering in New York City. During workshops and caucuses and through discussion and entertainment, participants came together to explore ways that this community can sustain and validate itself without supporting a system that actively exploits poor people, women, People of Color, g/b/l/TS/t people. This video takes the dialogue from Queeruption one step further. MARKET THIS! considers both the successes as well as the problems which resulted most visibly (and ironically) from a lack of involvement and presence of People of Color and Transgender people.
The film is a portrayal of Zanele Muholi, a lesbian photographer working in the South African GLBT community. This thin, combative person is already a world-wide famous artist. They define themselves as a "visual activist" in order to highlight their commitment to politics, to communicating ideas and to art. Their work includes: provocative nudes (like a female Mapplethorpe); young Zulu couples, dressed in traditional costumes, embracing each other; a homeless socially excluded lesbian couple; a dignified portrait of Victor Mukasa, the gay human rights leader from Uganda; wonderful shots of Zanele with their white partner. Beautiful and poetic pictures which are "militant" in nature since they condemn homophobia, poverty, and the public and private conflicts of a country divided between tradition and modernity.
Landscapes are permeable, impermanent. They are hallucinations of literature, manifestations of human manipulation. Like the pixel, they are degraded, rearranged, forgotten. “Eclogues” is an expression of landscape in the purest principles of digital image-making: duration, practicality, limitation. Shot in 2020 in Strafford, Vermont.
125 employees of the Catholic Church come out as queer! In the exclusive ARD documentary, believers in the service of the Catholic Church in Germany dare to go public together. People who identify as non-heterosexual talk about fighting for their church - sometimes at the risk of losing their jobs as a result. There are priests, religious brothers, parish assistants, diocese employees, religion teachers, kindergarten teachers, social workers and many more who report intimidation, denunciations, deep injuries, decades of hide and seek and double lives. The Catholics report a system in which pressure, fear and arbitrariness leave employees uncertain as to what exactly happens when they stand by their sexual orientation or identity. The investigative documentary listens to those who live their faith every day and are nevertheless degraded by the church as an institution.
Everything is political, even something as insignificant as a bathroom. The struggle to occupy spaces represents the struggle to reaffirm one's very existence. This is why we explore why the creation of gender-neutral bathrooms in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters is so important in a country that leads in hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community.
A girl from Hainan recounts her youth in a seaside village she couldn't leave.
Pet Shop works as an experiment on regret and suffering. A juxtaposition of a dog in a pet shop and a window. Narrated from the perspective of God, or the Devil, the text recounts discussions a person has had with Him. The person accuses Him of destroying his life. This could be for a sin, a murder, or for falling in love with a person of the same sex.
In an intimate and joyful story of love in the face of loss, celebrated poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley find strength—and unexpected hilarity—in what might be their final year together.
One man’s journey to find meaning in Bill Murray’s many unexpected adventures with everyday people, rare and never-before seen footage of the comedic icon participating in stories previously presumed to be urban legend.
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.
Documentarian Ross McElwee originally set out to make a travelogue of sorts tracing General William T. Sherman's infamous scorched-earth march through the Confederacy in the latter stages of the Civil War. Instead, haunted by a recent breakup with a girlfriend, McElwee ends up documenting his progress -- or lack thereof -- in starting a new relationship. His journey then becomes one of self-reflection and self-discovery rather than a historical/sociological exploration.
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
Harris Glenn Milstead, aka Divine (1945-1988) was the ultimate outsider turned underground hero. Spitting in the face of the status quos of body image, gender identity, sexuality, and preconceived notions of beauty, Divine succeeded in becoming an internationally recognized icon, recording artist, and character actor of stage and screen. Glenn went from the often-mocked, schoolyard fat kid to underdog royalty, standing up for millions of gay men and women, drag queens and punk rockers, and countless other socially ostracized misfits and freaks. With a completely committed in-your-face style, he blurred the line between performer and personality, and revolutionized pop culture.
Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.
14-year-old Laura Dekker sets out on a two-year voyage in pursuit of her dream to become the youngest person ever to sail around the world alone.
The film follows adventurer Jeff Johnson as he retraces the epic 1968 journey of his heroes Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins to Patagonia.
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.
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
NUDE explores perceptions of nudity in art by chronicling the creative process of photographer David Bellemere as he's commissioned by NU Muses founder Steve Shaw to shoot a fine art calendar of nude photographs.
A real-life undercover thriller about two ordinary men who embark on an outrageously dangerous ten-year mission to penetrate the world's most secretive and brutal dictatorship: North Korea.
Alex Gibney explores the charged issue of pedophilia in the Catholic Church, following a trail from the first known protest against clerical sexual abuse in the United States and all way to the Vatican.
Just two years away from turning 30, participants in Michael Apted's documentary series are facing serious questions of identity and purpose, wondering whether they've found their place in the world.
A string of threatening emails escalates into a revenge plot involving a newly married US marshal and his ex-girlfriend.
This raucous journey into the heart of democracy captures an unusual rite of passage: 1,100 teenage boys from across Texas coming together to build a representative government from the ground up.
An atmospheric essay, which is an alternative version of Count Dracula, a film directed by Jess Franco in 1970; a ghostly narration between fiction and reality.
Those who knew iconic funnyman John Candy best share his story, in their own words, through never-before-seen archival footage, imagery, and interviews.