
"Chapal Bhaduri, a leading lady of Bengal’s traditional folk traveling theatre-in-the-round, the Jatra, spent his life playing women. This film is an intimate biography that brings you face to face with this unique individual, sharing what it means to him to become a woman night after night, talking of the woman inside his body, of troubled sexuality, of a long partnership with his older lover, of the loneliness of living on the edges of conventional society–and showing how he metamorphoses into the goddess to perform her story." - The Bangalore International Centre
Self

"Chapal Bhaduri, a leading lady of Bengal’s traditional folk traveling theatre-in-the-round, the Jatra, spent his life playing women. This film is an intimate biography that brings you face to face with this unique individual, sharing what it means to him to become a woman night after night, talking of the woman inside his body, of troubled sexuality, of a long partnership with his older lover, of the loneliness of living on the edges of conventional society–and showing how he metamorphoses into the goddess to perform her story." - The Bangalore International Centre
1999-07-30
6
7.5Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.
7.8An investigation of how Hollywood's fabled stories have deeply influenced how Americans feel about transgender people, and how transgender people have been taught to feel about themselves.
6.9Brilliant, long in-the-works story of the life and art of the world's greatest comedian and the cinema's first genius, Charlie Chaplin. Produced, written and directed by renowned film critic Richard Schickel.
6.7The life and career of one of comedy's most inimitable modern voices, Mr. Gilbert Gottfried.
7.1Girl next door, activist, so-called traitor, fitness tycoon, Oscar winner: Jane Fonda has lived a life of controversy, tragedy and transformation – and she’s done it all in the public eye. An intimate look at one woman’s singular journey.
6.9This essential new documentary pays tribute to the legacy of the late, legendary casting director Marion Dougherty and shines a light on one of the most overlooked and least understood crafts in filmmaking.
7.2Diaries, audiotapes, videotapes and testimonials from friends and colleagues offer insight into the life and career of Gilda Radner -- the beloved comic and actress who became an icon on Saturday Night Live.
7.5In 1977, a book of photographs captured an awakening - women shedding the cultural restrictions of their childhoods and embracing their full humanity. This documentary revisits those photos, those women and those times and takes aim at our culture today that alarmingly shows the need for continued change.
6.7Unprecedented access to Muhammad Ali's personal archive of "audio journals" as well as interviews and testimonials from his inner circle of family and friends are used to tell the legend's life story.
7.5With exclusive access to his extraordinary unseen and unheard personal archive including hundreds of hours of audio recorded over the course of his life, this is the definitive Marlon Brando cinema documentary. Charting his exceptional career as an actor and his extraordinary life away from the stage and screen with Brando himself as your guide, the film will fully explore the complexities of the man by telling the story uniquely from Marlon's perspective, entirely in his own voice. No talking heads, no interviewees, just Brando on Brando and life.
7.5Artists in LA discover the work of forgotten Polish sculptor Stanislav Szukalski, a mad genius whose true story unfolds chapter by astounding chapter.
6.8BBC Arena's documentary on the Dames of British Theatre and film featuring Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench and Joan Plowright on screen together for the first time as they reminisce over a long summer weekend in a house Joan once shared with Sir Laurence Olivier.
6.8Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."
6.2SEDUCED AND ABANDONED combines acting legend Alec Baldwin with director James Toback as they lead us on a troublesome and often hilarious journey of raising financing for their next feature film. Moving from director to financier to star actor, the two players provide us with a unique look behind the curtain at the world's biggest and most glamourous film festival, shining a light on the bitter-sweet relationship filmmakers have with Cannes and the film business. Featuring insights from directors Martin Scorsese, 'Bernando Bertolucci' and Roman Polanski; actors Ryan Gosling and Jessica Chastain and a host of film distribution luminaries.
6.9The film MISS REPRESENTATION exposes how American youth are being sold the concept that women and girls’ value lies in their youth, beauty and sexuality. Explores the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America, and challenges the media's limited portrayal of what it means to be a powerful woman. It’s time to break that cycle of mistruths.
7.4The life and career of an actor, artist, and icon. His own journey through his own camera.
7.9Home movies, photographs, and recited poetry illustrate the life of Tupac Shakur, one of the most beloved, revolutionary, and volatile hip-hop MCs of all time.
6.9In 1999, Internet entrepreneur Josh Harris recruits dozens of young men and women who agree to live in underground apartments for weeks at a time while their every movement is broadcast online. Soon, Harris and his girlfriend embark on their own subterranean adventure, with cameras streaming live footage of their meals, arguments, bedroom activities, and bathroom habits. This documentary explores the role of technology in our lives, as it charts the fragile nature of dot-com economy.
6.8An intimately raw and magical journey through the life, mind, and heart of iconic artist Frida Kahlo. Told through her own words for the very first time — drawn from her diary, revealing letters, essays, and print interviews — and brought vividly to life by lyrical animation inspired by her unforgettable artwork.
8.8To mark the 60th birthday of the multi-talented comedian, singer and author Hape Kerkeling, the two documentary filmmakers André Schäfer and Eric Friedler have created a quiet, thoughtful and entertaining portrait of this often anarchic humorist. The film tells of his rapid rise as a teenager, his time and the blows of fate during the AIDS epidemic, the controversial forced outing, his confident exit from the show business and his new beginning. The film is a sensitive insight into the family history and a fast-paced journey through the career stages of a formative figure in German TV entertainment.
5.0While non-binary representations are rare, Lou talks about their relationship to gender, clothes, and other markers.
0.0Amidst the Colombian Andes, a group of trans women from the Embera Chami community make their way into the international fashion scene, empowered through artistic collaboration and creation while preserving their spiritual heritage and ancestral connection to their territory.
9.0A New York film and at the same time the study of a young man suffering from an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The Berlin filmmaker Oliver Sechting (37) and his co-director Max Taubert (23) travel to New York with the idea of documenting the art scene there. However, the project is quickly overshadowed by Oliver's OCD, and the two directors fall prey to a conflict that becomes the central theme of their film. Encounters with such artists as film directors Tom Tykwer (Cloud Atlas), Ira Sachs (Keep the Lights On), and Jonathan Caouette (Tarnation) or the transmedia artist Phoebe Legere seem more and more to resemble therapy sessions. At last, Andy Warhol-Superstar Ultra Violet succeeds in opening a new door for Oliver.
5.0With his soaring falsetto and magnetic yet understated stage presence, Jimmy Somerville burst onto the 1980s new wave scene, making the world dance to songs rooted in struggle and resilience. From the harsh realities of Glasgow’s working-class neighborhoods to the challenges of growing up gay in a hostile world, and the devastating impact of the AIDS crisis, Somerville transformed pain into anthems of freedom. First with Bronski Beat, then The Communards, and later as a solo artist, he became both rebel and diva—the unmistakable voice of a generation fighting for equality. Through intimate stories from those who have stood by him for four decades, this portrait reveals a rare artist who has never wavered in his convictions.
5.7A hearse cruises the streets of Medellín, while a young director tells his story in this city marked by conflicts, violence and paradoxes. He remembers his childhood and the discovery of his sexuality.
7.0A documentary on Queercore, the cultural and social movement that began as an offshoot of punk and was distinguished by its discontent with society's disapproval of the gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender communities.
0.0Pan lives two lives. During the day he is the son of a traditional Hong Kong family. But at night he transforms into the unapologetic drag queen Pansze Diva entertaining the underground of the city. Ultimately looking for acceptance by their parents, what does a death in the family change?
7.0For the last quarter century, Houston native Arden Eversmeyer journeyed across the country to record hundreds of oral "herstories" with a mostly invisible population that is rapidly disappearing. Old Lesbians honors Arden's legacy by animating the resilient, joyful voices she preserved in the Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project, from first crush to first love, from the closet to coming out, and finally from loss to connection.
3.2The final official installment in the "Mondo Cane" series dares to go where no other Mondo film has gone before.
1.0An edgy and unapologetic look at the growing impact that open LGBTQ music artists, and their straight allies, are having on the portrayal of sexuality and gender politics in music, and its affect on the normalizing of gay culture. Using artists personal experiences as a lens, we'll look at sexuality's influence on music and the role of social media in helping artists complicate mainstream expectations of identity. How far are artists willing to push their music, messages and imagery to challenge the way pop culture defines notions of sexuality, masculinity, femininity, gender and what it means to be queer?
0.0The 3rd installment in James A. Burkhalter's QUEER ROOTS trilogy: After years of his mother begging him to do it, James decides to finally review and erase 10 years' worth of phone messages. It tells the story of James' "roaring twenties," constructed solely through the voices of friends, family, and lovers.
6.0Since the 1970s, lesbians from around the world have been drawn to the island of Lesvos, the birthplace of the ancient Greek poet Sappho. When they find paradise in a local village and carve out their own queer lesbian community, tensions simmer with the local residents. With both groups claiming ownership of lesbian identity, filmmaker Tzeli Hadjidimitriou—a native and lesbian herself—is caught in the middle and chronicles 40+ years of love, community, conflict, and what it means to feel accepted.
0.0In his essay film, Jerry Tartaglia, longtime archivist and restorer of the film estate of queer New York underground, experimental film, and performance legend Jack Smith, deals less with Smith’s life than with his work, analyzing Smith’s aesthetic idiosyncrasies in 21 thematic chapters. It's a film essay about the artist’s work, rather than a documentary about his life. An unmediated vision of Jack Smith, an invitation to join him in his lost paradise.
0.0Using diary excerpts, photographs and memories from companions, the film paints the portrait of the artist Jürgen Baldiga who sensitively and authentically captured the West Berlin queer scene of the 1980s and early 1990s with his camera.
9.0Signals Through the Flames is at once a history and a celebration of the Living Theatre. Founded in the late 1940s by husband-and-wife performers Julian Beck and Judith Malina, the Living Theatre was for many years the predominent American outlet for the avant-garde movement. There were occasional self-imposed exiles to Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, but the group returned full-force during the Aquarius Age to entertain a new generation of theatregoers.
2.0Sometimes, finding your tribe requires a bit of magic. For attendees of a live action role-playing (LARP) camp in upstate New York, the deeply accepting environment has given neurodivergent, queer, and self-proclaimed "nerdy" teenagers the space and community for self-discovery that they have never found anywhere else. As the campers immerse themselves in this imaginative world, they discover inner strength, heal from past traumas, and emerge as the heroes they are meant to be, both in the fantasy realm and in real life.
0.0An unnamed passer-by is forced to trace a circular route inside an abandoned tram station, facing loss and time. The broken walls act as a channel, transmitting fragmentary, blurred and analogical memories.
8.0An inside look into the effort to preserve Philadelphia's ballroom scene, a black LGBTQ safe-space that has endured for 30 years.