An extraordinary tale of resilience unfolds against the backdrop of intense political rivalry and media scrutiny. Joanne Conte, the indomitable child of Italian immigrants, weathers the storm of public vilification as her past is unceremoniously plastered across the front pages of Colorado papers and on The Maury Povich Show. Yet, this assault on her character is not enough to halt the unwavering march of her life of service. She breaks barriers as the first transgender person to be elected to a city council in U.S. history, but her identity extends far beyond this groundbreaking accomplishment. As a valiant soldier, an impassioned activist, and a tenacious politician, Conte carves out a formidable legacy. This is an emotionally charged and evocatively detailed portrait of Joanne Conte, a multifaceted individual who lived her life far beyond the simplistic narratives of headlines.
Mary Hudgins
Chris Daly
An extraordinary tale of resilience unfolds against the backdrop of intense political rivalry and media scrutiny. Joanne Conte, the indomitable child of Italian immigrants, weathers the storm of public vilification as her past is unceremoniously plastered across the front pages of Colorado papers and on The Maury Povich Show. Yet, this assault on her character is not enough to halt the unwavering march of her life of service. She breaks barriers as the first transgender person to be elected to a city council in U.S. history, but her identity extends far beyond this groundbreaking accomplishment. As a valiant soldier, an impassioned activist, and a tenacious politician, Conte carves out a formidable legacy. This is an emotionally charged and evocatively detailed portrait of Joanne Conte, a multifaceted individual who lived her life far beyond the simplistic narratives of headlines.
2023-11-01
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As a Korean War veteran, activist, investigative journalist, and the first elected transgender city council member in U.S. history, Joanne Conte forges a powerful legacy of resilience and unwavering dedication to public service.
A portrait of the lives of a disparate group of patrons and employees at an American watering hole today.
Originally broadcast on ABC's True Stories in 1993, Feed Them to the Cannibals tells the story of Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. It was the first time cameras were allowed at Sleaze Ball and the Mardi Gras Party.
In the indigenous communities around the town of Juchitán, the world is not divided simply into males and females. The local Zapotec people have made room for a third category, which they call “muxes” - men who consider themselves women and live in a socially sanctioned limbo between the two genders.
Displaying the faces and voices of transgender youth, the documentary short shows the authenticity of queer and trans people living in Toronto, while simultaneously discussing the struggles for self-acceptance that people who do not conform to cisgender and heteronormative ideals of gender face. Andy Nguyen, trans director and film student, captures his trans friends in their natural state on 16mm film shot on a Bolex h16 camera. Accompanied by narration written and recited by Salem Rao, this film represents that trans people exist and this is what we look like. Regardless of the obvious everyday transphobia, trans people find community and uniqueness within each other and themselves.
A self-portrait short film on 16mm from a trans male perspective.
Sascha’s name wasn’t always Sascha. But now it is. Sascha doesn’t identify as a man or as a woman, but as trans non-binary. A story about what it means to live in a society that wasn’t expecting you. A glimpse into a life that allows us to question our own categories. And a film about what it means to be oneself.
This documentary portrays the way in which attacks against a twisted concept of “gender ideology” in four countries are being used to gain political power by right-wing conservative politicians supported by conservatives in the Catholic and evangelical churches.
Paper Dolls follows the lives of transgender migrant workers from the Philippines who work as health care providers for elderly Orthodox Jewish men and perform as drag queens during their spare time. It also delves into the lives of societal outcasts who search for freedom and acceptance.
Follow the emotional journey of Hiba Noor, a talented artist forced to flee her home country, as she navigates a new life in London while awaiting her asylum fate. This film takes you on a journey into the production of MATAR, a short film about a fellow asylum seeker facing similar problems.
After an unlikely casting onto a reality television show, 47-year old suburban telemarketer Ed Popil leaves his job to pursue a full-time entertainment industry career as his drag queen alter ego, 1960’s era housewife Mrs. Kasha Davis.
Peter Alexander, interviewed in Sydney, born and brought up as Mavis Higgins in New Zealand, speaks of his sex change from female to male. He discusses the aspects of his personality when younger which influenced his decision, his view of women in society and his plans for the future. Although Peter talks about shaving it is not clear if any medical intervention had assisted his sex change. The predominant voice in this clip is that of Alexander, dressed in jacket and tie, talking cheerily about his interest in sport, his awareness that his "male side and personality" were always dominant, his desire to marry and continue with his musical career. The story was sensationalised in the tabloid newspaper of the day "The Truth".
A story of the LGBT struggle from the 1960s to the present, after the Stonewall riot sparked the militant action in New York that was to spread around the world. From San Francisco to Paris via Amsterdam, between the first Gay Pride, the election of Harvey Milk, the French "decriminalization", the AIDS epidemic and the first homosexual marriages, these few decades of struggle are embodied through numerous testimonies of actors and actresses of this revolution rainbow.
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.
"Panic Bodies is a 70-minute, six-part exploration of the ways we experience the body's betrayals: disease, decline and death. The film is a panorama of emotionally charged recollections of strange relatives and estranged siblings, staged recreations of fast-fading pasts and personal mythologies, and reflections on the anxious states created by the body's fragile claims on time and space. It's about being a stranger in your own skin. Panic Bodies perfects the phantom quality of any good work about mourning, but it is not reducible to that. It is also enlivened by the intimacy that comes from having made a spectacle of personal secrets." (Kathleen Pirrie Adams, Xtra)
It wasn’t long until Ethan knew that he wasn’t Irene, meanwhile, Sarah wondered why it wasn’t the colour of her skin that made her feel so different from the others but, in fact, the stigma of living with HIV. Those are some of the stories from "DIVERSXS".
A Biography documentary going behind the scenes of the hit show 'Glee,' featuring interviews with creators and a handful of cast members as well as never-before-told stories from its conceptual beginning through the casting process.
Early 19th-century England is usually seen through the eyes of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters. Sue Perkins explores a dramatically different version, as lived and recorded by Anne Lister. A Yorkshire landowner, she kept a detailed, partly coded diary, revealing graphic details of her love affairs with women. Regency England was surprisingly tolerant of Anne's chosen lifestyle, and it was only when Anne sought to sink a coal mine on her land that criticism of her private life became public.
The life story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who survived the Nazi reign as a trans woman and helped start the German gay liberation movement. Documentary with some dramatized scenes. Two actors play the young and middle aged Charlotte and she plays herself in the later years.
For decades, performance artist and writer Kate Bornstein has been exploding binaries and deconstructing gender. And, her own identity. Trans-dyke. Reluctant polyamorist. Sadomasochist. Recovering Scientologist. Pioneering Gender Outlaw. Kate Bornstein Is a Queer and Pleasant Danger, joins her on her latest tour capturing rollicking public performances and painful personal revelations as it bears witness to Kate as a trailblazing artist theorist activist who inhabits a space between male and female with wit, style, and astonishing candor. By turns meditative and playful, the film invites us on a thought provoking journey through Kate's world to seek answers to some of life's biggest questions.