Pickup's Tricks is a beat documentary of Hibiscus and the Cockettes, who were pioneers of San Francisco’s underground queer theater in the early '70s. It is a multifarious blend of sexual anarchy; a raucous and unscripted mix of liberation and elation as rough and spirited as the lifestyle that created it. The film profiles Hibiscus, founding member of the Cockettes, the psychedelic drag queens that performed midnight musicals at the Palace Theater in San Francisco. The film includes a rare screen appearance of Allen Ginsberg, clean-shaven and costumed in "acute drag" as a Yiddishe Mama with a painted-on third eye. (pickupstricks.com)
Self

Pickup's Tricks is a beat documentary of Hibiscus and the Cockettes, who were pioneers of San Francisco’s underground queer theater in the early '70s. It is a multifarious blend of sexual anarchy; a raucous and unscripted mix of liberation and elation as rough and spirited as the lifestyle that created it. The film profiles Hibiscus, founding member of the Cockettes, the psychedelic drag queens that performed midnight musicals at the Palace Theater in San Francisco. The film includes a rare screen appearance of Allen Ginsberg, clean-shaven and costumed in "acute drag" as a Yiddishe Mama with a painted-on third eye. (pickupstricks.com)
1973-01-01
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1.5Fifty years on from the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in the UK, this BBC Two documentary explores how safe it is to be gay in Britain today. With homophobic hate crime on the rise, this film takes a 360 degree look at the issue, hearing from the victims, their families and the police. What makes someone attack another person because of their sexuality? How do victims deal with these unsolicited and unprovoked assaults? And what are we doing about this in Britain in 2017?
0.0Flora and Louise met in Yaoundé (Cameroon). They fell in love and ever since then have never left each other's side. By pushing open the door of the nonprofit housing them, I discovered the story behind their refugee status and the reasons behind their exile.
0.0The first documentary about the little-known world of transvestites in Montevideo. We are shown the most complicated facets of these people, their consciousness of themselves, and their perceptions of the world and of life. We learn about their everyday (and every night) experiences, and how they cope with the bigotry and old fashioned attitudes that are all around.
4.8Kelet is a twentysomething black trans woman, whose greatest dream is to be on the cover of Vogue magazine. For the Finnish-born and Manchester-raised Kelet, such models as Naomi Campbell and Iman served as role models giving her strength – and during the darkest times, kept her alive. After coming out, then 19-year-old Kelet was cut off from her family and she moved back to Finland on her own.
0.0What is heteronormativity, what does it mean for men and women, what is the cultural canon, does culture reflect or does culture construct? We reflect on all this by putting in dialogue ten people who, from different fields of culture, have thought about this.
0.0A nuanced portrait of a new generation, Dear Thirteen is a cinematic time capsule of coming of age in today’s world. Through the eyes of nine thirteen-year-olds, we see how pressing social, geographical and political challenges are shaping, and being shaped by, young people: rising anti-Semitism in Europe, guns in America, gender identity and racial divisions across Australia and Asia. With no adult commentary outside the filmmaker, Dear Thirteen offers an intimate view into the universal uncertainty inherent in growing up.
6.9An intimate portrayal of the everyday lives of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, high in the French Alps (Chartreuse Mountains). The idea for the film was proposed to the monks in 1984, but the Carthusians said they wanted time to think about it. The Carthusians finally contacted Gröning 16 years later to say they were now willing to permit Gröning to shoot the movie, if he was still interested.
0.0A documentary film focusing on the lives of a ladyboy who work as sex workers in Phnom Penh. Most of them were kicked out from their families and came to live in Phnom Penh and ended up working in the sex industry. This film sensitively deals with the daily discrimination they face. Sex work places them at risk to gang rape, sex violence, drugs and arrests by police. This documentary offers a window onto the lives of these sex workers in modern day Cambodian society.
0.0Jessica Bair, a longtime LGBTQIA+ rights advocate with Human Rights Campaign, shares her struggle to remain in her Mormon faith despite coming out as transgender.
0.0Monroe, Aura, Marlene: Three drag queens from the Ukrainian LGBTQ+ community raise funds for the frontlines, re-defining resilience and hope between glamorous shows and wartime life.
3.8A short documentary exploring the ways LGBT couples show affection, and how small interactions like holding hands in public can carry, not only huge personal significance, but also the power to create social change.
0.0Fragmentary perspectives on Human Rights and transgender (trans*) People in Turkey. What remains at the place where a murder happened? What constitutes trans* life? How to cope with daily violence and hatred? We begin to search for traces. We follow the tracks of resistance and survival. We are collectors of the expelled. We gather fragments of trans* lives inspired by texts of Nazim Hikmet, Foucault, Benjamin and Zeki Müren. Trans*BUT is a documental research study driven by the question: “What keeps you going when all else falls away?”
8.0A short film narrated by the drag queen Paloma, in interview with the filmmaker.
0.0The Purge traces a dark and little-known moment in Canadian history: the systemic discrimination faced by members of the LGBT community within the Armed Forces and the federal public service. From 1950 to 1996, it was yesterday, no effort was spared to flush out these men and women deemed "immoral" and representing a "danger to national security": intensive and coercive interrogations, humiliating tests, polygraphs, forced confessions and denunciations.
6.5Caitlyn Jenner's unlikely path to Olympic glory was inspirational. But her more challenging road to embracing her true self proved even more meaningful.
9.0In this documentary, director Rhys Ernst tells the previously untold histories of transgender pioneers. Trans people have always been here, throughout time, often hidden in plain sight.
5.4This film describes a psychological state "kin to moonstruck, its images emblems (not quite symbols) of suspension-of-self within consciousness and then that feeling of falling away from conscious thought. The film can only be said to describe or be emblematic of this state because I cannot imagine symbolizing or otherwise representing an equivalent of thoughtlessness itself. Thus the actors in the film, Jane Brakhage, Tom and Gloria Bartek, Williams Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Olovsky and Phillip Whalen are figments of this 'Thought-Fallen Process', as are their images in the film to find themselves being photographed."
9.0In 2017 and 2019, Gemmel “Juelz” Moore (26) and Timothy “Tim” Dean (55), two gay black men, died of a meth overdose at the West Hollywood apartment of white businessman, activist & political donor Ed Buck (66). The parallel stories of these two men, are intimately told by the friends who loved them, grieve their loss, and who hope to protect others from similarly tragic fates.
6.0A deliciously scandalous portrait of unsung Hollywood legend Scotty Bowers, whose bestselling memoir chronicled his decades spent as sexual procurer to the stars.
3.3After 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.