A legendary entertainer and a pioneer of gay activism, Miwa was born Akihiro Maruyama. As a young singer, Miwa popularized androgyny as a fashion statement, fusing the masculine and the feminine into a signal of a new generation of aesthetics. This evolved into performing as a woman and living off-stage as a man. With glitter, wit, evening gowns, and enchanting storytelling, Miwa looks back over a 50-year career and a fascinating life in music, film, and television.
A legendary entertainer and a pioneer of gay activism, Miwa was born Akihiro Maruyama. As a young singer, Miwa popularized androgyny as a fashion statement, fusing the masculine and the feminine into a signal of a new generation of aesthetics. This evolved into performing as a woman and living off-stage as a man. With glitter, wit, evening gowns, and enchanting storytelling, Miwa looks back over a 50-year career and a fascinating life in music, film, and television.
2013-08-31
6.3
In the 1960s, Japan's most popular actress was… a man
Naoya and Katsuhiro are boyfriends, new in their relationship. Things are uneven at first—Naoya is open and free while Katsuhiro is cautious and closeted—but nothing compares to the chaos that arrives when Asako, a troubled woman with a history of psychiatric problems, abortions, and casual sex, asks Katsuhiro to conceive a child with her.
In a futuristic world that has embraced ape slavery, a chimpanzee named Caesar resurfaces after almost twenty years of hiding from the authorities, and prepares for a revolt against humanity.
In the far future, a highly sexual woman is tasked with finding and stopping the evil Durand-Durand. Along the way she encounters various unusual people.
Chen Chen returns to his former school in Shanghai when he learns that his beloved instructor has been murdered. While investigating the man's death, Chen discovers that a rival Japanese school is operating a drug smuggling ring. To avenge his master’s death, Chen takes on both Chinese and Japanese assassins… and even a towering Russian.
Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.
Unable to find her runaway son, a woman deceives two of her ex-lovers from her youth, a mild-mannered teacher and a tough journalist, that each is the real father in order to obtain their help.
A formal dinner party starts out normally enough, but after the bourgeois group retire to the host’s music room, they inexplicably find themselves unable to leave.
An engaged Hollywood agent receives a mysterious letter for an anonymous sexual encounter and becomes ensnared in a sinister world of lying, infidelity, and digital data.
A giant thirty-five-foot shark becomes trapped in a SeaWorld theme park and it's up to the sons of police chief Brody to rescue everyone.
In the slums of the upper West Side of Manhattan, tensions are high as a gang of Polish-Americans compete against a gang of recently immigrated Puerto Ricans, but this doesn't stop two romantics from each gang falling in love.
Three tales of very different women using their sexuality as a means to getting what they want.
A reporter in Iraq might just have the story of a lifetime when he meets Lyn Cassady, a guy who claims to be a former member of the U.S. Army's New Earth Army, a unit that employs paranormal powers in their missions.
American crime reporter John Jones is reassigned to Europe as a foreign correspondent to cover the imminent war. When he walks into the middle of an assassination and stumbles on a spy ring, he seeks help from a beautiful politician’s daughter and an urbane English journalist to uncover the truth.
A martial artist agrees to spy on a reclusive crime lord using his invitation to a tournament there as cover.
When a visionary architect and his wife flee post-war Europe in 1947 to rebuild their legacy and witness the birth of modern United States, their lives are changed forever by a mysterious, wealthy client.
Popular animated hero Asterix and his faithful sidekick Obelix travel to ancient Egypt to help Cleopatra build a new summer home. Cleopatra and Julius Caesar have made a bet, with Caesar wagering the project cannot be completed in a few weeks time. With the help of a magic potion, Asterix comes to the rescue of the Queen of the Nile as Caesar and an angry architect plot against them.
Zhenya and Boris are going through a vicious divorce marked by resentment, frustration and recriminations. Already embarking on new lives, each with a new partner, they are impatient to start again, to turn the page – even if it means threatening to abandon their 12-year-old son Alyosha. Until, after witnessing one of their fights, Alyosha disappears.
Littlefoot befriends with a mysterious, fun-loving dolphin-like creature named Mo, who is trapped in "new water" caused by heavy rain. The gang then goes on an adventure to the "big water" to bring Mo home.
Dr. Adrian Helmsley, part of a worldwide geophysical team investigating the effect on the earth of radiation from unprecedented solar storms, learns that the earth's core is heating up. He warns U.S. President Thomas Wilson that the crust of the earth is becoming unstable and that without proper preparations for saving a fraction of the world's population, the entire race is doomed. Meanwhile, writer Jackson Curtis stumbles on the same information. While the world's leaders race to build "arks" to escape the impending cataclysm, Curtis struggles to find a way to save his family. Meanwhile, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes of unprecedented strength wreak havoc around the world.
Four older gay couples discuss their relationships, civil partnerships and their views on multiple topics such as spirituality, religion, love, gay rights, etc.
Best friends Jack and Yaya celebrate their 30th year of friendship in their hometown in South Jersey alongside a motley crew of extended family and neighbors. While they party and reminisce, Jack and Yaya support each other as they both fight for acceptance as openly trans people.
Ballroom voguing has fiercely swept across the world becoming a global phenomenon. Against the backdrop of Spain's contemporary ballroom scene, Jayce and a growing group of Black trans folks have emerged to reclaim the space.
Matt Walsh's controversial doc challenges radical gender ideology through provocative interviews and humor.
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.
In a warehouse in the heart of Los Angeles, a dwindling handful of devoted craftspeople maintain more than 80,000 student musical instruments, the largest remaining workshop in America of its kind. Meet four unforgettable characters whose broken-and-repaired lives have been dedicated to bringing so much more than music to the schoolchildren of this city.
In 1978 the police attacked demonstrators at the Sydney (Australia) Mardi Gras celebrations. This film details the communities' responses.
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.
In November 2014 the Iconic club Madame Jojos closed its doors. This event being interpreted by many as the death knell of Soho.The gentrification of Soho affects the LGBT community and its Drag Queen sub-culture, but the cabaret atmosphere of the entire neighborhood in enormous ways. This active pursuit to destroy a bubbling and vibrant part of the city's heart is viewed by many as an atrocity akin to turning the lights off on Broadway. Over 3rd of London's music venues have been closed in recent years and no one noticed. An active movement to bring a halt to this disaster has begun to unfold with one organization after another emerging to fight for Soho. Organizations made up of citizens and celebrities have sprung up to combat this onslaught. Will they win this battle and save Soho?
A groundbreaking film that portrays the journey of Gigi Lazzarato, a fearless woman who began life as Gregory, posting fashion videos to YouTube from his bedroom, only to later come out as a transgender female. With never-before-seen personal footage, the film spotlights a family’s unwavering love for a child.
A documentary about the lives of six transgender women in post-Franco Spain.
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.
The place is the notorious Starck Club (so called because it was the first major project designed by Philippe Starck in the US.) The Starck Club opened in Dallas in 1984 and not long after hosted the 1984 national Republican Convention. Ironically, it was actually legal to buy MDMA aka ecstasy there, people would put it on their credit cards. The DEA stepped in and made it a category 1 drug on July 1, 1985... In a time when ecstasy was legal & guyliner was cool.
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.
Through a collection of video diary entries spanning more than a year, Pronouns in Bio delivers an offbeat and charming reflection on transness and identity. Part documentary, part video essay and part musical, the film follows director and star Lucy Rose Shaftain-Fenner, a recently out transgender, autistic woman, as she navigates the first year of her transition. Note: Lucy uses the name Frankie during the film but has since started using the name Lucy.
Private Diary documents photographer Pedro Usabiaga working with a variety of amateur models. The audience sees how the relationships between the photographer and the subjects changes during their time together, as well as how the individual photographs begin to take shape. Pedro Usabiaga is a well-established Basque photographer whose chief concerns are figurative photography and whose passion in photographing the Spanish male. In this hour long conversation with the artist we are given entry into that process of selecting models (none of the models he uses for this book to be titled 'Private Diary' are professional, but instead are randomly chosen as Usabiaga observes athletes in action) and then allowed to follow Usabiaga and his crew as they photograph these men in natural settings and natural light.
Three Swedish teenagers express their thoughts about bi- and homosexuality while navigating questions of identity, self-acceptance, and societal expectations. Through personal stories and reflections, the film explores their struggles, hopes, and the challenges of growing up as LGBTQ+ youth in Sweden.
The hotel Gondolín is home to some 30 transvestites who practice prostitution as the only option to survive in a society that excludes them.
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.