Divergence Movie Night - Movie List
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document last edited: June 3rd, 2009
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The following is a list of the films in the Divergence Movie Night library. All
have been purchased with Public Performance Rights from their producer or
distribution company*. Divergence Movie Night believes in supporting filmmakers
for their hard work and presents films with full legal permissions.
* The film "Meth" is made available on a limited license only
allowing it to be aired in groups of up to 25 people.
Download a PDF of this listing
In 2002, Michelle Dumaresq became the first openly
transgendered woman in the world to be named to a national team in any
sport. 100% Woman begins as
Dumaresq's mountain-bike riding career did, careening down a rocky path to be
met with controversy. From some critics comes cautious concern, from others,
complete attack. Beginning with her
days on the BC race circuit, to the Canada Cup, the national title and finally,
a berth at the World Championships, her progress is dogged by constant
scrutiny, both from fellow competitors and the media. Dumaresq insists she
doesn't race to make a stand, but doesn't shy from being a trailblazer. She
grew up in turmoil over her identity and struggled to come to terms with
herself as an adult, even with her parents' whole-hearted support. She takes on
the mantle of role model because she understands how isolated others like her
feel.
Karen Duthie
/ 59 min / 2004
Tori Foster took her camera across the country to talk to 20
women about what it's like to be queer where they live. The documentary follows
the 22 year-old's journey through all ten provinces, beginning in Newfoundland and ending in British Columbia. Intimate and personal, 533
Statements tells stories about what makes each of us who we are.
Tori Foster
/ 70 min / 2006
A powerful look at the ideas and feelings of successful,
black gay men on such issues as sexuality, masculinity and their perception of
and their role within the black community.
Sheila J. Wise / 15 min / 2001
Abomination: Homosexuality and the Ex-Gay Movement
Again and again we see it in the
news: evangelical ministers who
preach against homosexuality and scandalizing themselves when their own
homosexuality is revealed.
Proponents of so-called “reparative therapy” know it
doesn’t work. Yet they persist with ever-greater fervor and insist that
gay Christians try to change their sexual orientation.
Abomination: Homosexuality and the
Ex-Gay Movement profiles the journeys of four gay Christians who did everything
possible to become heterosexual by following the treatment protocols of the
so-called ex-gay ministries.
At times heartbreaking, at other times hilarious, the approaches taken
by these religious groups range from shock therapy and hypnosis to
“gender coaching.”
Ultimately the “therapy” fails, even for the ministers in
charge as they repeatedly scandalize themselves by "relapsing into gayness."
Abomination is a poignant testimony to
the healing power of love on the road to self-acceptance. It is also a film
about human rights and the fragility of our liberty in an increasingly
fundamentalist America.
Alicia Salzer / 27 min / 2006
Almost There
Almost There is the story of a lesbian couple's move away
from Israel
and the problems they wish to leave behind. Joelle lived in Tel-Aviv for eleven
years but tired of this city wrapped in violence. Sigal, hiding her true sexual identity
from her family, needs to distance herself to be able to have a more complete
life with her partner. Together they travel through Greece in search of a new
home. The couple tape each other
throughout their travels, producing a video diary, each expressing her feelings
as she observes the other. Their
unfurling journey pushes them to question the very heart of their search;
essential dilemmas such as: "Where do I belong?" "What is
home?" and "How can we be part of our families when we are different
from them?"
Almost There presents a couple that dares: dares to change
their life, dares to deal with personal fears, dares to search for
happiness...and most of all, dares to make a documentary which carefully
explores the beauty and difficulties of intimacy, sexual identity, and the
complexity of family relationships--all difficult to examine, unless we turn
the camera upon ourselves.
Joelle Alexis &
Sigal Yehuda / 52 min / 2003
And The March Continues!
And the March
Continues! combines documentary and narrative forms to present a history of the
lesbian movement in Mexico
from its origins to the present.
Testimonies from Mexican lesbians and movement leaders give impressions
of daily life in their country. A
dramatized encounter between Frida Kahlo, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (acclaimed
17th Century Mexican poet) and modern day Mexican revolutionary, Adelita, is a
humorous but poignant acknowledgement of the historical and cultural impact
made by these and other Mexican lesbians.
Guadalupe Olvera San Miguel / 30 min / 1997
Annie Sprinkle's Herstory of Porn
The Herstory of Porn is a cult classic porn-art documentary
that is both educational and entertaining.
It examines important cultural topics including censorship, controversial
art, feminism, gender issues and sex education. Based on Annie Sprinkle's touring show,
she takes us through a campy and honest history of her pornographic films in a
way that is almost Mystery Porn Theatre 3000.
Annie Sprinkle & Sheila Malone / 69 min
/ 1999
The Believers
Built around the world's first transgender gospel choir,
Transcendence Gospel Choir, The Believers is an unprecedented documentary that
shatters assumptions about faith, gender, and religion. It follows their shaky beginnings
- a heartwarmingly chaotic, cacophonous group unable to agree on much of
anything, arguing over appropriate wardrobe and learning to sing with
transitioning voices - through their transformation into the polished,
award-winning choir and close-knit family they are today. Revealing the lives of the members and
their personal struggles, it deals with how they reconcile their gender
identity against a religious belief that changing one's gender goes against the
word of God. The intimate personal
stories shed light on the complexity of balancing social change, family
history, religion and identity.
Todd Holland / 80 min / 2006
Breakin' The Glass
Breakin’ the Glass examines the promise and power of
women’s professional basketball though interviews with the founders and
players of the American Basketball League. Athletes discuss what it means for
women finally to have the opportunity to play professional basketball in the US.
Chronicling the rise and fall of the ABL, it provides insight into the politics
of professional sports.
Marla Leech & Dina Maria Munsch / 28 min
/ 2000
Call Me Troy
Profiling the life and times of one of the gay community's
most visible and tenacious advocates for change, Rev. Troy Perry, Call Me Troy
is a truly inspirational story about a remarkable and dynamic individual whose
activism was decades ahead of its time.
Rev. Perry is best known as the founder of the first church to recognize
the spiritual needs of the gay community. From presidential advisor to
outspoken advocate, Perry has been on the front lines leading the charge for
equal rights and protections for gay men and lesbians as well as providing a
place for all people to worship side by side. This film celebrates his life and his
legacy.
Scott Bloom / 100 min / 2007
Andrea James / 7 min / 2007
Cerebral Palsy is the result of damage to the motor skills
section of the brain due to oxygen deprivation that occurs as the baby travels
down the birth canal to be born. Most individuals who live with this disability
are above average intelligence, thoughtful and sensitive, and also tend to have
a higher than normal sex drive.
Cerebral Palsy and Sex interviews three people with cerebral palsy who
speak frankly about their sexuality, their attitudes, and their experiences with
sex. It shows them having sexual relations with their partners and alone.
Primarily directed to people with disabilities and those who care for them, it
is also a challenge to the able-bodied society to accept difference and
alternative standards of sexual attractiveness and capability.
Linda Feesey / 25 min / 2003
During the 1950’s, Dr. Evelyn Hooker undertook ground
breaking research that led to a radical discovery: homosexuals were not, by
definition, “sick.” Dr. Hooker’s findings sent shock waves
through the psychiatric community and culminated in a major victory for gay
rights -- in 1974 the weight of her studies, along with gay activism, forced
the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its official
manual of mental disorders.
Richard Schmiechen / 75 min / 1991
Choosing Children
is a well-crafted exploration of the issues facing lesbians who choose to have
children. It offers seldom-seen
insights in to a revolutionary generation of lesbian mothers.
Kim
Klausner & Debra Chasnoff / 45 min / 1984
Chrissy
Breaking records as
the most watched documentary on Australian television, where it first aired on
World AIDS Day in 1999, Chrissy is an honest and daring film. Ex-runaway and
street kid, Chrissy was diagnosed HIV+ at age 18. She did not reveal her sexual
orientation or her illness to her family until eight years later. As we follow
Chrissy, her mother and three younger sisters for the next year, we are given
access to a world one must see to really understand. Beginning at the time
Chrissy revealed her HIV+ status to her family, filmmaker, Jacqui North takes
us on a personal journey of a family learning about acceptance and love.
Jacqui
North / 52 min / 1999
Different Shades of Pink
Different Shades of Pink examines cross-cultural love
through the lives of three Sydney
couples. James, a white man, and his partner Paul, originally from Singapore,
talk about their lives together; Howard, a Chinese man from Malaysia, and his
white boyfriend David relive the moment they first met on Lady Jane Beach; and
Dan, also a white man, recalls memories of his greatest love, Bruce, an African
American man from Los Angeles. Exploring cultural stereotypes, coming out in
repressive societies and the tricky navigation of difference, Different Shades
of Pink addresses notions of self within the context of loving relationships.
Pak-Kin Ho & Alexander Ku / 45 min / 2001
Traces the debate on same sex marriage in Canada over the
past decade up to the passage of same sex marriage on July 20, 2005. The story
is told from the perspective of three couples and the lawyers and activists who
sought to uphold the Charter Rights of lesbians and gay men against the
opposition of the Government of Canada, provincial governments and a coalition
of religious opposition. The End of
Second Class presents a powerful polemic on an issue of social justice and equality
which remains controversial today, and vividly paints the context in which gays
and lesbian sought to overcome a history of discrimination and second class
status and persuade the most powerful institutions of the state and the courts
to affirm their right to equal recognition of their relationships and their
right to marry.
Nancy Nicol / 90 min / 2006
9 Transsexual men
(FTM) and their partners discuss and disclose their sexualities. Enough Man
features health educators, college students, sex workers, activists and
artists, and puts the sex back into transsexuality.
Luke
Woodward / 61 min / 2005
Eye on the Guy: Alan B. Stone and
the Age of Beefcake
Alan B. Stone:
astute businessman, quiet suburbanite— and master of the homoerotic
pin-up. Eye on the Guy: Alan B. Stone & the Age of Beefcake explores the
little-known world of Montreal’s physique photography scene— a
distinct gay subculture that emerged in the 50s’ and 60s’—
through the life and work of one of its most creative figures. Operating under
the social radar of post-war Canada,
Stone produced thousands of images of men—from Montreal bodybuilders to Pacific coast
fishermen, from rodeo cowboys to the construction workers who built Expo
67. // Like his American
contemporary, physique photographer Bob Mizer, Alan B. Stone was a cultural
pioneer. Before the first wave of gay liberation, and long before Calvin
Klein’s poster boys marched into public view, Stone was taking hundreds
of erotic photos of men and running an international mail-order business from
his Montreal
basement.
Philip Lewis & Jean-François Monette / 49 min / 2006
The Fall of '55
In the fall of
1955, a gay sex scandal erupted in the unassuming, wholesome and
"vice-less" town of Boise,
Idaho, as teenage boys who had
prostituted themselves to older men began to disclose their dalliances to
authorities. Overnight, Boise's homosexual underworld-comprised
mostly of married family men-was splashed onto headlines and thrust into the
spotlight. What followed was a
classic witch-hunt, marked by intense homophobic hysteria, in which the whole
town became embroiled. The Fall Of
’55 provides unique insights into the pre-Stonewall gay experience as
well as 1950s America's
struggle with the issue of homosexuality and the prevailing myth that it was a
cancer that could be spread to the youth.
Seth
Randal / 82 min / 2006
Fight Back, Fight AIDS: 15 Years
Of Act Up
James Wentzy's in-your-face Fight
Back, Fight AIDS is a compilation of footage documenting the first ACT UP
meeting in 1987 on New York City's
Wall Street and continues to 2002. Amateur video recording – at the
demonstration level and from the private, behind-the-scenes meetings and
training – reveals the astonishing camaraderie that united a politically
enraged community, regardless of age, race, ethnicity or gender. Recognizable faces among the hundreds of
ACT UP activists, timelessly captured over the 15 years of footage, are likely
to be moving. Particularly noteworthy is seeing activist and author Vito Russo
issue a speech equating AIDS to war then demanding to know how the two
landscapes differ. Whether or not
your own political views are aligned with ACT UP’s today, this infinitely
relevant political group taught us to fight back against government
complacency, to protest the high cost of pharmaceutical drugs, and to simply
ask others, Where is your rage?"
James
Wentzy / 75 min / 2002
Framing Lesbian Fashion
Framing Lesbian
Fashion looks at the evolution of lesbian attire and identity--butch/femme,
flannel, androgyny, cross-dressing and drag, queer fluorescent, S/M and
leather, lipstick and more.
Featuring interviews with Sally Gearhart, JoAnn Loulan, Arlene Stein,
Kitty Tsui and others, Framing Lesbian Fashion incorporates archival photos and
personal stories to document the sociology and history of lesbian fashion.
Karen
Everett / 60 min / 1992
FtF: Female To Femme
Explores femme dyke identities as radical gender
practices. A film that envisions
more than it documents, FtF denaturalizes gender and pushes for an
understanding of femininity as multiple rather than singular, constructed
rather than natural. Sexy, funny
and controversial, FtF features a host of fabulous femmes, including professors,
activists, artists and dancers. FtF makes use of parody and costuming much the
way femme does: to create a saucy, indelible impression of a people, politics
and gender revolution.
Kami Chisholm & Elizabeth Stark / 48 min
/ 2006
During the twelve
years from the Stonewall Rebellion (1969) to the first reported cases of AIDS
(1981) there was a search for a definition of what it meant to be gay. And for
the most part, that search required openly exploring a sexuality that for
decades had been forbidden.
Joseph
Lovett / 72 min / 2005
Gay USA
Arthur Bressan
created a gay-America panorama when he commissioned filmmakers throughout the
country to record all June 1977 Lesbian and Gay Pride parades and marches. He
then cut on-the-street interviews--gay women and men talking about their lovers
and how they came out--with the resulting footage, including lesbians marching
against housework and drag queens protesting fascism. A revolutionary
document. "When the Anita
Bryant debacle happened I was hurled into making this political documentary. My
naive dream was that if we all saw ourselves in our numbers we would never buy
into the guilt trip again. Not from Anita Bryant or from [NYC] Mayor Koch or
from Cardinal Cook. Not even from AIDS...."
Arthur
Bressan / 78 min / 1977
Turkey is the only Islamic country
today where you cannot be prosecuted for being gay or lesbian. Homosexuals are only tolerated in Turkey
as long as they stay invisible.
Coming out bears a great risk.
The fear of losing family support, friends and employment keeps the
majority of Turkish queers quiet.
In Half A Life three gay men, one lesbian, and one transsexual woman
talk openly about how they think, what they feel, and how people react to
them. The film offers five personal
stories of Turkish queers who do not want to hide any longer.
Claudia
Laszczak & Kay Wishoth / 55 min / 2004
Hand On The Pulse
Using interviews, photos and
archival footage, Hand on the Pulse is the poignant story of Joan Nestle,
political and sexual "bad girl."
Hand on the Pulse traces Joan's
life; finding her community in Greenwich Village in the 1950's, celebrating the
body in her writings and in her public readings in her black slip, having a
lesbian archives in her home for 25 years, teaching students from colonized
backgrounds, participating in the Black civil rights movement as a freedom
rider, becoming a feminist, and helping to forge a new lesbian and gay
consciousness through grass roots organizing. Now in her 60's, Joan continues
to celebrate the body as an aging woman and as a woman with cancer.
Co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory
Archives in New York City,
Joan has made a significant contribution to our understanding of women's
sexuality, gender issues, and the preservation of lesbian history and culture
for the last half century.
Joyce Warshow / 52 min / 2002
Harsh Beauty
Existing as they have for centuries, the Eunuchs (or Hijra)
are considered the third gender, neither men nor women. Harsh Beauty follows
over a period of 3 years the lives of Jyothi, Usha and hira bai, three Eunuchs
who live openly as women, and want to be accepted for what they truly believe
themselves to be. Set against the vibrant energy of the Indian metropolis, it
takes a glance into a society rarely seen and often misunderstood.
Alessandra
Zeka / 54 min / 2005
Five young gays and lesbians in New York City have produced their own vivid
and unique autobiographical portraits with the help of videomaker Joan Jubela.
Monique talks about her girlfriends and about being a Latina
dyke in New York City.
Peter, meanwhile, tapes the story of his long-distance relationship with his
closeted Canadian athlete boyfriend, Richard. An anonymous 15-year old talks
about being hassled in school and shows off his scrapbooks of gay and
African-American history. 17-year old community organizer Henry Diaz offers a
look at the organization that helped him come out, Youth Force. And Nicky, a
19-year old Afro Carribbean-American lesbian, tells us about her girlfriend,
growing up as a Jehovah's Witness and being institutionalized for being a
lesbian.
Homoteens / 60 min / 1993
A blue collar African-American mother, talks about her
pregnancy and raising her daughter with her lesbian lover.
Karen (Sloe) Goodman / 23 min / 1983
In a time when LGBT families are debated and attacked in the
media, courts and Congress, from school houses to state houses across the
country, five young people who are children of LGBT parents give you a chance
to walk in their shoes – to hear their own views on marriage, making
change, and what it means to be a family.
Jen Gilomen and Colage / 31 min / 2005
Inside Boystown is an intimate portrait of the lives of six
male prostitutes who work the streets in Vancouver's
chic Yaletown district. It blends interviews with the boys with commentary from
three support workers who explain the dynamics of male street prostitution:
Paul Harris, a street nurse who specializes in working with high risk youth,
Sandy Cooke, the executive director of Covenant House Vancouver and Christopher
Graham, the director of the Ministry of Children and Families Safe House and
Detox programs. The film provides an honest and forthright look at a commonly
hidden aspect of contemporary society.
Louise Walker / 49 min / 2002
Born in the early 1960s, the sex workers movement
encompasses groups rooted in 5 continents.
The organisation of sex workers into a movement has enabled their
emergence as subjects of their experiences, of their subjectivities, and of
their voices. With short films
hailing from Canada, France, USA
and India,
La Putain De Compile is an eye opening collection that presents alternative
discourses and representations about sex work. Be it in traditional media, in feminist
groups, or even in our daily lives, there is a need to give space to those most
concerned -- sex workers!
This title is comprised of various short films and is often
shown with the following trimmed down selection from series:
various / various min / 2006
Last Call At Maud's chronicles the
history of the longest-running lesbian bar in the United States. This venerable San Francisco establishment opened in 1966,
when lesbians were still very much in the closet. Maud's flourished throughout the '70s
and '80s, enjoying an international reputation as a meeting place for lesbians
and their friends, only to be shut down in 1989. Provocative personal stories of coming
out in the 50s and 60s, sexual politics and softball are mixed with flashbacks
to the Hollywood gay bars of the '40s and the
vice raids of the '50s. The vintage
photos and personal interviews are an invaluable window into lesbian history.
Paris Poirier / 77 min / 1993
Legacy
A visually and
aurally sumptuous exploration of the legacy of slavery on mother/daughter
relationships in African Caribbean culture. As they pay tribute to their
ancestors, a daughter asks her Caribbean-born mother why she was taught both
Afro-Caribbean and European religious traditions. The mother admits that there
was conflict about which ideology to teach, so a mix of Cumina, Catholicism and
Anglicanism resulted. Though alienated by the beating she suffered as a child,
the now-adult daughter describes her mother's understanding when, during
college, she told her mother about her sexuality and her mother was lovingly
accepting.
Inge
Blackman / 17 min / 2006
Love Man Love Woman
In this
documentary, the filmmaker follows Master Luu Ngoc Duc, one of the most
prominent spirit mediums in Hanoi,
and his vibrant community through their rituals and everyday life. The film
explores how effeminate and gay men in homophobic Vietnam have traditionally found
community and expression in the country’s popular Mother Goddess
Religion, Dao Mau.
Nguyen
Trinh Thi / 53 min / 2007
Madame Lauraine's Transsexual
Touch
Spend an evening at Madame Lauraine's transsexual whorehouse
where you can either eat in or take out!
An explicit, sexy and educational film about sexual health, transsexual
sex workers and being a respectful John.
Mirha-Soleil Ross & Viviane-Namaste
& Monica Forrester / 34 min / 2001
Meth is a documentary film exploring the rising wave of
crystal methamphetamine use within the gay population. It begins as an
ecstatic, mind-blowing thrill ride where one finds himself on top of the world
with feelings of superhuman power and collegial connectivity. As
crystal’s power takes hold, however, it begins to call the shots, and the
fun takes a turn for darkness.
Todd Ahlberg / 79 min / 2005
While the beginnings of the LGBT Civil Rights movement was
gaining momentum, the 1970s witnessed horrific custody battles for lesbian
mothers. Mom's Apple Pie revisits the early tumultuous years of the lesbian
custody movement through the stories of five lesbian mothers and their four
children. The documentary
interviews the sons and daughters who were separated from their mothers, the
mothers themselves, and one woman who made the difficult decision to flee with
her children. Founders of the Lesbian Rights Project (now the National Center
for Lesbian Rights) and the Lesbian Mothers' National Defense Fund recount the
founding of their organizations in response to the bevy of court rulings
granting custody to grandparents, fathers and distant relatives based on the
belief that lesbians would be unfit parents.
Jody Laine, Shan Ottey, Shad Reinstein / 60
min / 2006
A lively and surprising portrait of a group of homosexuals
who defend their sexual diversity while preserving their identity as Zapotec
Indians in the "queer paradise" of Juchitán, Mexico.
Muxes focuses on a dozen "intrepid" muxes who, since the mid-70s,
have been more aggressive in ensuring that they are a visible part of the daily
life of the town rather than an accepted one. In a country where machismo
prevails, this is all the more difficult for those that fall
"in-between."
Alejandra
Islas / 105 min / 2005
In 1991 Cheryl Summerville received a termination paper
stating that she was fired for "failing to demonstrate normal heterosexual
values." She was shocked to discover that in 47 American states it was
legal to fire workers simply for being homosexual. Out at Work chronicles the dramatic
stories of three gay workers, at work and through their collective fight to
secure workplace safety, job security and employee benefits for gay and lesbian
workers.
Kelly Anderson & Tami Gold / 56 min /
1996
Out in the Heartland
explores how Kentucky's
recent constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage affects three families and
their communities. As momentum pushes the issue from the mega-churches to the
ballot box, gay parents begin to fear for their families’ safety and future.
Gretchen
Hildebran / 18 min / 2005
Outlet
This film tells the personal stories
of the teenagers who participate in a support group offered by a Bay Area youth
organization called "Outlet." It includes observational footage of
their weekly support group and mentoring meetings, giving us a glimpse of the
challenges they face at school on a daily basis. Interviews with the support
group facilitator, a young gay activist and a transgender teen address the
evolution of contemporary queer issues as they are taken on by local middle
school and high school students.
Leigh
Iacobucci / 19 min / 2006
Based in Quebec, Politics of the
Heart is a moving portrait of lesbian and gay families as well as a powerful
story of how they organized out of conditions of violence and discrimination to
win recognition of their relationships, families and parenting rights. As a
result of their work the Quebec National Assembly voted unanimously to extend
the same parenting rights to homoparental families as heterosexual parents, in
2002. Woven into the story is also the landmark case in Quebec
that broke the ban against same sex marriage, making Quebec
the third province in Canada
to recognize equal marriage.
Nancy
Nicol / 68 min / 2005
Rainbow's End
With the advent of same sex
marriage, homosexuals have achieved near-equality in much of Europe. Everything seems rosy, so why should
they keep on fighting? Rainbow's
End is a revealing and entertaining multinational journey from the center to
the borders of Europe. From parades and
protests in Warsaw and Krakow to touching
personal stories with social, religious and political insights, the film moves
from street activism to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. A starting point for any timely
and relevant discussion regarding the future of lesbian, gay, bi and
transgender people within Europe and throughout the world.
At the end of the rainbow, gay and
lesbian existence reverberates in an intimate and moving way within a tense
field of major political issues: newly established Christian and Islamic
fundamentalisms, the curtailing of human rights, issues of asylum and
right-wing radicalism. Rainbow's End suggests that there remains a great deal
for the LGBT community to accomplish in the new Europe.
Jochen Hick & Christian Jentzsch / 75 min / 2006
Rewriting the Script: Love Letter
to Our Families
Rewriting the Script features frank discussions with
parents, siblings and extended family members of South Asian gays, lesbians,
bisexuals and transgendered people. Poignant testimonies are shared not only
about the coming out experience but how these families transformed themselves
to include their queer children, changing the larger South Asian community in
the process. It speaks not only to
experiences of South Asians (which includes people originating from the Indian
subcontinent), but to other diasporic communities as well.
various / 46 min / 2001
The Salt Mines explores the lives of three Latino
transsexuals who for years have lived on the streets of Manhattan supporting their drug addictions
through sex work.
Carlos Aparicio & Susana Aikin / 47 min
/ 1990
Tells the
little-known story of the first known act of collective, violent resistance to
the social oppression of queer people in the United
States -- a 1966 riot in San
Francisco's impoverished Tenderloin neighbourhood, three years
before the famous gay riot at New
York's Stonewall Inn.
Victor
Silverman & Susan Stryker / 57 min / 2005
She's A Boy I Knew
Vancouver filmmaker Gwen Haworth documents
her male-to-female gender transition partially through the voices of her
anxious but loving family, best friend, and wife. Finding self-empowerment through
self-representation, Haworth’s feature
debut is a comic, heartbreaking, and uplifting autobiography that focuses on a
family whose bonds unexpectedly strengthen as they re-examine their
preconceptions of gender and sexuality.
(70 min)
Gwen
Haworth / 70 min / 2007
Stand Together is
the first comprehensive documentary on the gay liberation movement in Ontario, Canada. It draws together a rich body of
documents, images and rarely seen archival footage with dramatizations and
interviews to bring to life a story of justice denied and victories won,
outrage and humour, celebration and humanity. From the National Security Campaigns in
the 1960s (when the RCMP investigated thousands of lesbians and gays working in
the public service in Canada),
to the Criminal Code Amendments decriminalizing homosexual acts between two
consenting adults in 1969. From the
1981 bath raids in Toronto (when 286 men were arrested in raids on four gay
baths, the largest mass arrest in Canadian history since the War Measure Act in
Quebec) to the 1986 vote to include 'sexual orientation' as a prohibited ground
of discrimination in the Ontario Human Right Code.
Nancy
Nicol / 124 min / 2002
Still Black - A Portrait of Black
Trans Men
Explores the lives of six black
transgender men living in the United
States. Through the intimate stories of
their lives as artists, students, husbands, fathers, lawyers, and teachers, the
film offers viewers a complex and multi-faceted image of race, sexuality and
trans identity.
Kortney
Ryan Ziegler / 77 min / 2008
Surviving Friendly Fire
Ten thousand of youths live on the streets of Hollywood. They are runaways, some are
“throwaways,” abandoned or forcefully exiled from their
families’ homes. About a third
of them are gay, lesbian or transgender.
In 1992, seventy homeless youths of various racial, cultural and sexual
identities registered for a theatre project in the Hollywood
shelter where they lived. In 1993,
their play, Friendly Fire, was the centerpiece of the prestigious Los Angeles
Festival before it toured to high acclaim in high schools throughout the
city. Surviving Friendly Fire is a
documentary about ten teenagers who endured incredible cruelties and hardships,
and found the courage to tell their story.
Todd Nelson / 60 min / 2000
Jorge Lozano / 22 min / 1996
Examines the unique world of progressive and radical drag
kings and queens. Explores issues of gender, physical disability, race and
more.
Freddie Fagula / 90 min / 1999
Toilet Training is a documentary
video and collaboration between transgender videomaker Tara Mateik and the
Sylvia Rivera Law Project, an organization dedicated to ending poverty and
gender identity discrimination.
The video addresses the persistent
discrimination, harassment, and violence that people who transgress gender
norms face in gender segregated bathrooms. Using the stories of people who have
been harassed, arrested or beaten for trying to use bathrooms, Toilet Training
focuses on bathroom access in public space, in schools, and at work.
Includes discussion of legal
questions of equal access; the health effects associated with "holding
it"; and the social consequences of experiencing pervasive discrimination
in bathrooms and other gendered spaces. Interviews with lawyers, social workers
and activists explore current law and policy, and highlight recent and future
policy changes necessary to enable equal bathroom access for all. Concluding
with examples of policy change, Toilet Training provides a necessary foundation to public
education and organizing to address this overlooked issue.
Tara Matiek / 30 min / 2003
Tongues Untied
Using poetry,
personal testimony, rap and performance, Tongues Untied describes the
homophobia and racism that confront Black gay men. Shot in 1986, this film now
also acts as a historical document of the vibrant black gay scene of the 80s.
Marlon
T. Riggs / 55 min / 1989
The Transformation
The Transformation is a video
documentary that explores the changes that Ricardo (Sara in The Salt Mines),
former homeless prostitute transvestite, undergoes after discovering that he is
HIV+ and deciding that he is not going to die on the streets. In order to move
out of his street life he accepts help from a group of Born Again Christians
who in exchange demand his complete transformation: that of homosexual to
heterosexual. Ricardo is taken to Dallas
where he tries very hard to transform himself: inside and out. During this
process he becomes a Christian and ends up marrying Betty, a woman he meets
through the chuch. Together they try to start a new life away from his past.
Meanwhile the church organizes a
trip to New York
to “rescue” other transvestite street walkers and invites Ricardo
to go along with them and preach his example. Ricardo travels to New York and meets up with his old friends Gigi and
Giovanna, both of whom refuse the offer to come back with him to Dallas to be redeemed
from their sexuality. They also refuse to believe in the truth of his
transformation, and regard it openly as a desperate exercise in survival.
Ricardo and the church committee return to Dallas empty handed.
As time goes by and Ricardo is
affected by the onset of AIDS-related illness, he looks back on his life and
reflects that if he could choose all over again he would still want to be a
woman.
Carlos Aparicio & Susan Aikin / 58 min / 1995
Transparent
Pink or blue. Male or Female. Mommy or Daddy. Categories
that we all take for granted are broken apart in this documentary about 19
female-to-male transsexuals who have given birth and, in all but a few stories,
gone on to raise their biological children. It focuses on its subjects' lives
as parents, revealing the diverse ways in which each person reconciles giving
birth and being a biological mother with his masculine identity, and through
the variety of genders the children use to conceive of their parents.
Jules Rosskam / 61 min / 2005
Two-Spirit People is an overview of historical and contemporary
Native American concepts of gender, sexuality and sexual orientation.
Michel
Beauchemin, Lori Levy & Gretchen Vogel / 20 min / 1991
An intimate look at the individual journeys and lessons
learned by people deeply involved in San
Francisco’s BDSM (Bondage/Discipline,
Dominance/Submission, Sado-Masochism) community. Features members of the
community revealing the eye-opening uncensored truth about their fascinating
yet misunderstood lifestyle.
Howard Scott Warshaw / 73 min / 2006
Voguing: The
Message traces the roots of this gay, Black and Latino dance form, which
appropriates and plays with poses and images from mainstream fashion. Voguing
competitions parody fashion shows and rate the contestants on the basis of
movement, appearance and costume. This tape is a pre-Madonna primer that raises
questions about race, sex and subcultural style.
Jack
Walworth, David Bronstein & Dorothy Low / 13 min / 1989
Voices From The Front
In New York City, a distraught activist
confronts the mayor with a story of a friend who languished on a cot in an
emergency room hallway for nine days, only to die 48 hours after leaving the
hospital. In 1988, thousands of activists
hold the Food and Drug Administration under siege, demanding faster drug
approval. In 1990, AIDS activists
converge on the National Institute of Health, calling for a more equitable
clinical trial system and expanded research into new drugs and treatment. Voices From the Front makes clear the
emotional and political effects of community activism using the voices of those
directly engaged.
Testing the Limits / 90 min / 1991
Yapping Out Loud: Contagious Thoughts from an Unrepentant Whore
On May 1, 2002, transsexual sex worker and performance
artist Mirha-Soleil Ross delivered a series of blows in monologue form at
anti-prostitution discourses and campaigns. She details the way they often tragically
impact on sex workers’ conditions and lives. This video combines savvy
performance document with hard-hitting animal rights footage to become a
manifesto for the freedom of all.
Mirha-Soleil Ross & Mark Karbusicky / 74
min / 2002
The Year of Paper
When San Fransisco officials began issuing marriage licenses
to same-sex couples in 2004, the country went to war over a word. How different is a “gay
marriage” from a heterosexual one?
The Year of Paper chronicles the newlywed year of three couples
-lesbian, heterosexual and gay- exploring why they got married and how saying
“I Do” has changed their relationships. Although each newlywed year takes a
different path, these couples deal with similar issues. Family acceptance of
their relationship, finances, resolving conflict and starting a family of their
own are among the experiences they share. In experiencing their everyday lives,
we see the human faces behind this issue. It also follows the firestorm of
debate that surrounds the very idea of marriage for same-sex couples.
Kelly Rouse & Nikki Parker / 91 min /
2007
