Rude Questions(1980)

Balakrishna(en)

When an extraordinary new resident – Balakrishna, an Indian elephant – arrived in the town of East River, Nova Scotia, in 1967, no one was more in awe of the creature than young Winton Cook, who became inseparable from his mammoth new friend. Using painterly animation, photographs and home-movie treasures, Balakrishna transmits the wistfulness of childhood memories, while evoking themes of friendship and loss, and issues of immigration and elephant conservation.

To Be Sound is to Be Solid(en)

When artist Erin Johnson and film editor Charlotte Prager moved into a seaside house in 2021, they knew only a handful of facts about the two women who designed and built it in 1971. The two women - art collector Mary-Leigh Smart and artist Beverly Hallam - were exacting about their specifications for the house, and they lived there together for over forty years. In "To be Sound is to be Solid," the filmmakers venture to decipher the house's opaque queer history by studying its complicated and circuitous floor plan. "To be Sound is to be Solid" is a film of layered intimacies and vicarious encounters. By investigating indefinability, erasure, and transparency in queer archives and scientific research, the film builds connections between lesbian, architectural, and environmental histories.

There are things in this world that are yet to be named(en)

"There are things in this world that are yet to be named" centers around Solanum plastisexum - an Australian tomato whose sexual expression is unpredictable and unstable, challenging even the fluid norms of the plant kingdom. Footage of the team of botanists who recently used their Solanum research to explode notions of sexual normativity in any plant or animal is combined with a voiceover of letters sent between science writer Rachel Carson and her lover Dorothy Freeman. "There are things in this world that are yet to be named" is a meditation on erasure, indefinability, and the intersection of queer and environmental histories.

a small island(en)

The Weight of Sight(no)

The Weight of Sight is a playful and very personal essay where director Truls Krane Meby, through a massive archive of his own material - anything from DV-tapes to 35mm - explores the last 20 years of digital development - how it’s influenced the images we make, and our bodies. What kind of images do we get of the world now that everyone is a photographer, and what does it do with how we unfold our identities? How has the internet both captured and freed us? And will Truls even dare to show this film?

Mr. Leather(pt)

Dom Barbudo, a pioneer in the São Paulo gay and BDSM community and elected first Mister Leather Brasil in 2017, prepares to pass on the mantle to one of the four contestants in the second edition of the contest.

Corrupt Colour(en)

Corrupt Colour follows childhood friends and self-proclaimed internet pop-stars, Emily and Gia as they set up their first live concert but their delusions of grandeur are compromised when the live show of their dreams becomes a nightmare. The show must go on and with the help of their closest friends, irreverent leads Emily and Gia are forced to reckon with their true place in the public eye. With poignant lyrics, loud personalities, and unique creative decisions, Emily and Gia take us on a hilarious and melancholy journey through identity in the digital age that leaves us all asking "who am I trying to be?"

We've Been Around(en)

In 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.

Lake(en)

Lake gazes down at a still body of water from a birds-eye view, while a group of artists peacefully float in and out of the frame or work to stay at the surface. As they glide farther away and draw closer together, they reach out in collective queer and desirous exchanges — holding hands, drifting over and under their neighbors, making space, taking care of each other with a casual, gentle intimacy while they come together as individual parts of a whole. The video reflects on notions of togetherness and feminist theorist Silvia Federici’s call to “reconnect what capitalism has divided: our relation with nature, with others, and our bodies.”

Tomatoes(en)

Across the installation's multiple channels, the camera circles a group of artists as they sit together in a field eating, licking, and squeezing ripe tomatoes. Throughout the ever-changing scene, kisses, whispers, and caresses are shared with a casual, gentle intimacy that reflects interconnectivity and abundance. These queer and desirous exchanges constitute a portrait of collectivity wherein individuals come together as distinct parts of a whole.

Resident Ground Floor(en)

Heiko, 51, a sheet metal former trained in GDR times, unemployed since the fall of the wall, pisses on his bed and on the carpet. The film encounters Heiko's dysfunctional family history and his decision to be alone forever. Piss and GDR, a reflection of how deep the consequences of the fall of the Wall are still in the bodies of some people to this day.

Safe Space(en)

Following the lives of Queer creatives behind Norwich’s queer collaborative ‘Stripped Sets’. We discover the reasoning behind the need for safe spaces, and the stories that come with them. Through live events, photoshoots and history, we see the process in creating such an important event.

A Jornada(pt)

A mixture of a time travel, a documentary, artistic and performative record of the director's subjective view of the places, people and moments he spent from 2015 to 2018. Filmed on super 8 mm film.

A Long Way From Heaven: The Rainbow Y Story(en)

The true story of the students of Brigham Young University's queer underground, as they lit the school's iconic "Y" in rainbow colors. But, A Long Way From Heaven does a lot more than tell the story of the Rainbow Y. It outlines the history of queer treatment at BYU - the good (where it exists), the bad, and the very, very ugly. The film combines new, original footage with a huge variety of historical images, videos, newspaper articles, and other mixed media from every conceivable source to tell the story of BYU's queer students, and the bravery and risks they constantly take to make their voices heard.

Babsi Adler(sl)

Babsi Adler is a magnificent character that represents the Slovenian drag scene. This short portrait documentary is built through a Halloween night with Babsi and their surroundings. In a conversation with a friend Babsi is open to share their personal thoughts and struggles.

The Unicorn(en)

Peter Grudzien is the lone musical force behind The Unicorn, an openly gay country music album. With the same rawness of a life full of ups and downs, The Unicorn, the movie, follows his personal and artistic journey, which includes mental problems and a peculiar and chaotic family.

Trade Center(en)

The voices of five gay men who cruised for sex at the World Trade Center in the 1980s and 1990s haunt the sanitized, commerce-driven landscape that is the newly rebuilt Freedom Tower campus.

Queendom(ru)

In defiance of Russia’s anti-LGBTQ laws, a queer, 21-year-old artist risks her life performing in surreal costumes throughout Moscow. Jenna Marvin’s radical public performances blend artistry and activism in this SXSW documentary.

Mabel(en)

Feisty, fiercely independent and firmly rooted in place, 90 year-old Mabel Robinson broke barriers back in the 40s when she became the first woman in Hubbards, Nova Scotia, to launch her own business—a hairdressing salon where she still provides shampoo-n-sets over 70 years later. Weaving animation and archival imagery with intimate and laugh out loud moments in the salon, the film celebrates the power of friendship, doing what you love and staying active. With no desire to retire anytime soon, Mabel gives voice to a generation who are not front and center of cinema or the pop hairstyles of the day, and subtly shifts the lens on our perception of beauty and the elderly.

Liminal(en)

A trans paranormal investigator and their team search for the connection between the queer and the strange as they explore the mysterious and magical world of the rural south.