Activist Bayard Rustin faces racism and homophobia as he helps change the course of Civil Rights history by orchestrating the 1963 March on Washington.
In recent years, more than 2,500 books have been removed from school districts around the US, labeled as banned, restricted, or challenged, and made unavailable to millions of students. By no accident, the themes targeted are the usual scapegoats of the American Right—LGBTQ+ issues, Black History, and women’s empowerment—impeding the power of future generations to develop their own thoughts and opinions on critical social issues. By weaving together a lyrical montage of young readers and authors, THE ABCs OF BOOK BANNING reveals the voices of the impacted parties, and inspires hope for the future through the profound insights of inquisitive youthful minds.
A young girl who has just spent an afternoon playing tennis and making love with a man, gets accidentally run off the road by a truck. Ending up on a dead-end dirt road, her car gets stuck in a ditch, where she starts getting terrorized by a drooling, gibbering psycho, who also has a colony of rats.
After years of estrangement, a trans woman returns home to help care for her dying mother.
An unschooled young man, one of the countless victims of Mao's Cultural Revolution, is laboring in the countryside when he is assigned to teach in a nearby school. Gradually, he abandons the Maoist textbook and encourages the barely literate kids to write about their own lives and feelings.
In NATO-occupied Kosovo, a little girl writes an essay for the United Nations about her father who has gone missing. Meanwhile, the girl's grandfather becomes increasingly paranoid of the unseen threats that lurk in the dark.
Musician Jon Batiste attempts to compose a symphony as his wife, writer Suleika Jaouad, undergoes cancer treatment.
An intimate documentary that follows Tig Notaro, a Los Angeles based comedian, who just days after being diagnosed with invasive stage II breast cancer changed the course of her career with a poignant stand-up set that became legendary overnight. It explores Tig's extraordinary journey as her career ignites and as her life unfolds in grand and unexpected ways, all the while continuing to battle a life-threatening illness and falling in love.
Filmmaking icon Agnès Varda, the award-winning director regarded by many as the grandmother of the French new wave, turns the camera on herself with this unique autobiographical documentary. Composed of film excerpts and elaborate dramatic re-creations, Varda's self-portrait recounts the highs and lows of her professional career, the many friendships that affected her life and her longtime marriage to cinematic giant Jacques Demy.
Anything’s Possible is a delightfully modern Gen Z coming-of-age story that follows Kelsa, a confident high school girl who is trans, as she navigates through senior year. When her classmate Khal gets a crush on her, he musters up the courage to ask her out, despite the drama he knows it could cause. What transpires is a romance that showcases the joy, tenderness, and pain of young love.
Two ex-lovers get snowed in at a regional airport overnight. Indefinitely delayed, Willa, a magical thinker, and Bill, a catastrophic one, find themselves just as attracted to and annoyed by one another as they did decades earlier. But as they unpack the riddle of their mutual past and compare their lives to the dreams they once shared, they begin to wonder if their reunion is mere coincidence, or something more enchanted.
Four married couples find out their marriage is invalid because it was officiated by a fraudulent priest and have to decide what to do next.
Lucía is an eight-year-old girl, who sometimes struggles as the world tries to catch up with the fact that she is trans. As the summer holidays pass, she explores her femininity alongside the women of her family who at the same time reflect on their own femininity.
Journalist Michael Ausiello embarks on a rollercoaster ride of emotions when Kit Cowan, his partner of 14 years, is diagnosed with terminal cancer.
After living for over two centuries, Augusto Pinochet is a vampire ready to die… but the vultures around him won't let him go without one last bite.
A curmudgeonly instructor at a New England prep school is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam.
Fueled by an impoverished childhood, George Foreman channeled his anger into becoming an Olympic Gold medalist and World Heavyweight Champion, followed by a near-death experience that took him from the boxing ring to the pulpit. But when he sees his community struggling spiritually and financially, Foreman returns to the ring and makes history by reclaiming his title, becoming the oldest and most improbable World Heavyweight Boxing Champion ever.
The French government is asking Gustave Eiffel to design something spectacular for the 1889 Paris World Fair, but he simply wants to design the subway—until he crosses paths with a mysterious woman from his past.
A retired mobster goes on a revenge spree after being left for dead with 22 bullets in his body by his former childhood friend.
An emotional journey of a former school teacher, who writes letters for illiterate people, and a young boy, whose mother has just died, as they search for the father he never knew.
It's 1986, tormented teenager Henry is struggling with his sexuality and abusive home life. Henry sits in his closet contemplating suicide. In a flash of light he is transported to 2016 where he meets teenager Ben — now occupying his room 30 years later.
In 1895, Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was the most famous writer in London, and Bosie Douglas, son of the notorious Marquess of Queensberry, was his lover. Accused and convicted of gross indecency, he was imprisoned for two years and subjected to hard labor. Once free, he abandons England to live in France, where he will spend his last years, haunted by memories of the past, poverty and immense sadness.
Two Navy fighter pilots find themselves in the midst of a forbidden relationship throwing their lives and careers into disarray.
Noor wants to be a man. He doesn't belong anymore to the Khusras, Pakistan's transgender community. And he is definitely done with the love story he had with one of them, that had drastically changed his life. Now, he is doing a man's job in a Truck Decoration Center and he made up his mind: he will find a girl who will accept him as he is.
Based on a true story, Yoshiko and Yuriko relates the journey and great love affair of Yoshiko, who was a renowned translator of Russian literature and drama, and Yuriko, who was a feminist novelist and great activist of the post-war democratic literature movement. Both have left huge marks on Japanese literary history. The two women shared a strong attraction to each other from their first meeting and enjoyed a powerful love affair. Yoshiko reveals that she's an out lesbian, whilst Yuriko is married (not altogether happily) to a well-known scholar - a situation she can't walk away from with ease.
Five real-life stories of Olympic athletes of Russia. Five stories which intertwined love, betrayal, friendship. Each of these victories worth hard work, respect and belief in yourself, in your family and to your country.
Romain, 31, a fashion photographer with terminal cancer, elects to die alone, preparing others to live past him rather than prolong the inevitable with chemotherapy or be smothered in sympathy by those who know him.
A biopic depicting the life of filmmaker and aviation pioneer Howard Hughes from 1927 to 1947, during which time he became a successful film producer and an aviation magnate, while simultaneously growing more unstable due to severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.
The true, harrowing story of a young Jewish girl who, with her family and their friends, is forced into hiding in an attic in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.
Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, Ron Kovic becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for.
Rather than choosing a great leader or king, God chooses Abraham, an elderly shepherd from Mesopotamia, as the way to establish his Covenant with mankind... A man of great faith, Abraham continues to believe in God even when He seems to have abandoned him.
Blank-faced bug killer Bill Lee and his dead-eyed wife, Joan, like to get high on Bill's pest poisons while lounging with Beat poet pals. After meeting the devilish Dr. Benway, Bill gets a drug made from a centipede. Upon indulging, he accidentally kills Joan, takes orders from his typewriter-turned-cockroach, ends up in a constantly mutating Mediterranean city and learns that his hip friends have published his work -- which he doesn't remember writing.
A collection of 3 shorts films about teen boys becoming men and the hardship they go through. The shorts films are: A Friend of Dorothy (1994); Baby (2000); A Little Comfort [Juste un peu de réconfort...] (2004).
This short films collection deals with coming of age which describes the process of maturing from youth to adult. The unrest and conflicts that go hand in hand with this difficult time are reflected in a wide variety of topics. Deep intimate situations alternate with deliciously funny moments. The short films are: Like a Brother (2002); Late Bloomer (2004); Little Wings (2007); Connected (2008); The Cousin [El primo] (2008); Ready? OK! (2008).
The fourth short film collection gives its creators special artistic expression: as if under a magnifying glass, it shows snapshots of lives of teens and young men as they fall in love and try to understand the unexpected. The 6 short films are: Sexy Grandpa (2001); Coffee (2004); Thermopylae (2005); The Love Within (2016); Romeo's Kiss [Le baiser] (2007); Love, Death & Cars (2008).
Coming-of-age short film collection about adolescence. In "An Afterthought", the story of Peter Pan is taken up, does the Everlasting Boy really appear to little Jane or is it all just a dream? In "Beautiful Alexander", the insecure teenager's dilemma is revealed: does he dare to go one step further and approach his idol Ivan on the beach? In a run-down part of Madrid, Paco and José in "Cuban Heel Shoes" have to take care that no one finds out about their love affair. Claudio is 15 and wants to belong to the clique in "J'ador", he admires the 18 year old leader Lauro. If he wants to belong he needs to grow up. "Mani" is 12 and trying to come to terms with his burgeoning puberty/sexuality. He discovers that his mother is having an affair with the family driver. In "My Brother", the brothers Umberto and Stefano have to share a room, with the elder Umberto being forced to look after his younger brother, who constantly seeks contact and affection.
Kan and Tul are aspiring actors who meet at an audition. From there on, another story unfolds, and both find themselves battling their own feelings.
Difficult times and persecution in Mexico during the Cristero Rebellion. The life of young Jose Sanchez del Rio, who became a martyr and a saint.
Nina, an end-of-teenage orphan with mental problems, starts a new job as a garden cleaner when she meets Toni. They fell in love with each other, but soon Toni starts betraying Nina. In the meantime, Francoise is picked up at a psychic department of a Berlin hospital by her husband, Pierre. After seeing Nina, Francoise believes that she has found her kidnapped daughter Marie, but neither Toni nor Pierre believe her. Nina is unsure about what to think...
The true story of the frightening, lonely world of silence and darkness of 7-year-old Helen Keller who, since infancy, has never seen the sky, heard her mother's voice or expressed her innermost feelings. Then Annie Sullivan, a 20-year-old teacher from Boston, arrives. Having just recently regained her own sight, the no-nonsense Annie reaches out to Helen through the power of touch, the only tool they have in common, and leads her bold pupil on a miraculous journey from fear and isolation to happiness and light.