Through a creative blend of mixed-media and charismatic narration balancing humor, sass and historical gravity, discover the queer history of the carabiner in this latest WaterBear Original, directed by Gianna Mazzeo and made in partnership with Nikon. Follow the carabiner’s story, from its humble 1911 climbing roots (thanks, Otto "Rambo" Herzog), to empowering butch mechanics and postal workers in the 60s, becoming a potent signal of identity and attraction in the 80’s (think Tinder, but with hardware) and as a TikTok fashion sensation today.
Through archive footage and images as well as interviews, the movie paints the portrait of a legendary trans womens' rights activist in Argentina. Like a family album to flip through, the narrative charts the ties solidarity and mutual aid create between people of the LGBTQI+ community and the long road to make the personal political, during the brutal 1980s in latin America.
The only thing colder than a Canadian winter is Canadian bureaucracy (probably). Based on five real life stories, Romy Boutin St-Pierre and Joe Nadeau pay homage to the nation-wide stress headache of phone calls with the government in this surprising short.
Art Johnston and Pepe Peña are civil rights leaders whose life and love is a force behind LGBTQ+ equality in the heart of the country. Their iconic gay bar, Sidetrack, has helped fuel movements and create community for decades in Chicago's queer enclave. But, behind the business and their historic activism exists a love unlike any other.
Violeta leads a normal life in a well-off family, with loving parents, surrounded by everything the heart of an eleven-year-old girl might wish for. But she hasn’t always been the pretty girl she is today; she was born a boy. At age 6, she baffled her parents (the famous adult movie stars Nacho Vidal and Franceska Jaimes) when she told them she wanted to be called and dress as a girl. After the initial shock, they decided to give her all their support on the long and tough road that will lead to her becoming a woman someday. Violeta faces many challenges, medical (such as deciding whether or not to take hormone-blockers to stop the development of masculine features as soon as puberty kicks in) and legal (obtaining an ID card with her new name and gender). Later, she may consider getting a sex reassignment procedure, or the possibility of becoming a mother through adoption.
Lucy Rose, a transgender woman, shares her journey of self-love and empowerment since starting hormone replacement therapy three years ago. The film is part animation, part documentary and part VHS archive footage.
Activists of the LGBTQ+ association Rain Arcigay Caserta come back living in a property given to them in concession, confiscated from the Camorra in Castel Volturno. The goal is to reconnect with the local inhabitants and propose a new idea of sharing and regenerating the park.
A non-binary folk watches the handover of the first non-binary ID in the history of Chile. As they try to do the paperwork, they will face the bureaucracy of the legal proceeding.
Trans is a 1982 Venezuelan documentary short film that offers an intimate look into the lives of a group of trans women and drag performers in Caracas, exploring their experiences in a society marked by transphobia and homophobia. Through interviews and performances, the documentary highlights the resilience and dignity of these women in the face of widespread discrimination and violence. Premiering at the Venezuelan National Cinematheque in 1982, Trans is considered a pioneering work in the representation of the trans community in Latin American cinema.
A documentary that chronicles the twenty years of Pride parading in Iceland. Filmmaker Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir has shot the parade from the beginning, with all its pride and power, beauty and sometimes ugliness. She mixes old material and new interviews with activists who reminisce about their participation in the parade, it’s impact on society in general, and what Pride means for the LGBTQ+ community.
This documentary contains dramatized episodes about the lives of Erika and Klaus Mann, the brilliant children of German writer Thomas Mann.
Harvey Milk was an outspoken human rights activist and one of the first openly gay U.S. politicians elected to public office; even after his assassination in 1978, he continues to inspire disenfranchised people around the world.
UCLA Student Film, Preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Documentary from Community Video Center San Diego about the Gay Rights March on Washington D.C. on October 14, 1979. Interviews include representatives from the Greater San Diego Business Association, San Diego Democratic Club, Senate for Social Services, and Gay Alliance for Equal Rights, a mother advocating her gay son's rights and creator of a parents activist group in Orange County, Allen Ginsberg, and Gay Mormons, as well as other attendees of the march. Interviewees speak about gay rights, equal protection under the law, and end to discrimination against gay people.
At a time when the far right is ascending to power around the world, the 2020 Brazilian municipal elections saw a surprising and unprecedented record of LGBT candidates. This film follows four young queer politicians during their electoral campaigns and reveals their struggle to affirm their rights to exist and be heard.
How did the rise of LGBTQ visibility, political progress, and digital technologies in the 2000s come together to offer the abundance of complex queer and transgender representations we see today? Media scholar Katherine Sender shows how LGBTQ visibility and political progress have combined with new digital media technologies and television platforms to produce an increasingly complex range of queer and transgender representations.
The oldest known "out" African-American lesbian remembers ten colorful decades in this hour-long documentary, which won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the San Francisco International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in 1999. Born July 23, 1899, in Springfield, IL, Ruth Ellis spent most of her life in Detroit. A pioneering independent black businesswoman, she operated her own print shop until the age of 65. In the home she shared with Cecilene "Babe" Franklin, her partner of more than 30 years, she played host to innumerable gatherings of the city's African-American gays and lesbians in an age when segregation excluded them from white homosexual society. A participant in the civil rights movement and a witness of the riots that tore Detroit apart in the 1960s, Ellis later became an icon for, and active participant in, the city's multicultural lesbian and feminist community.
Jon Sistiaga takes an immersive trip to Poland, a country divided into two zones: on the one hand, the urban and pro-European, and on the other, the rural and ultra-Catholic, still anchored in the traumas of the war and the post-war period. Is Poland a homophobic country or does it have a homophobic government? How does the European Union allow this situation?
By issuing marriage licenses to same gender couples, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom uproots the status quo and attempts to change the way the nation looks at life, love, and marriage.
Two men undertake a thought-provoking journey to parenthood. Not by adoption or surrogacy, but by Frankie, a trans man, carrying their baby. Made with support from NZ on Air.