Harris Glenn Milstead, aka Divine (1945-1988) was the ultimate outsider turned underground hero. Spitting in the face of the status quos of body image, gender identity, sexuality, and preconceived notions of beauty, Divine succeeded in becoming an internationally recognized icon, recording artist, and character actor of stage and screen. Glenn went from the often-mocked, schoolyard fat kid to underdog royalty, standing up for millions of gay men and women, drag queens and punk rockers, and countless other socially ostracized misfits and freaks. With a completely committed in-your-face style, he blurred the line between performer and personality, and revolutionized pop culture.
A midwestern teacher questions his sexuality after a former student makes a comment about him at the Academy Awards.
The life and times of Baltimore film maker and midnight movie pioneer, John Waters.
A documentary on the career of filmmaker John Waters. Featuring interviews with actors and fellow film-makers. The life and death of the actor Divine is also discussed.
The history of Sound City and their huge recording device; exploring how digital change has allowed 'people that have no place' in music to become stars. It follows former Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighter David Grohl as he attempts to resurrect the studio back to former glories.
Shin Dong-Huyk was born on November 19, 1983 as a political prisoner in a North Korean re-education camp. He was a child of two prisoners who had been married by order of the wardens. He spent his entire childhood and youth in Camp 14, in fact a death camp. He was forced to labor since he was six years old and suffered from hunger, beatings and torture, always at the mercy of the wardens. He knew nothing about the world outside the barbed-wire fences. At the age of 23, with the help of an older prisoner, he managed to escape. For months he traveled through North Korea and China and finally to South Korea, where he encountered a world completely strange to him.
Throughout the 1950s, Tab Hunter reigned as Hollywood’s ultimate male heartthrob. But throughout his years of stardom, Tab had a secret. Tab Hunter was gay, and spent his Hollywood years in a precarious closet that repeatedly threatened to implode and destroy him. Tab Hunter himself shares first hand, for the first time, what it was like to be a studio manufactured movie star during the Golden Age of Hollywood and the consequences of being someone totally different from his studio manufactured image.
It had all the makings of a huge television success: a white-hot comic at the helm, a coveted primetime slot, and a pantheon of future comedy legends in the cast and crew. So why did The Dana Carvey Show—with a writers room and cast including then unknowns Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Louis C.K., Robert Smigel, Charlie Kaufman, and more— crash and burn so spectacularly? TOO FUNNY TO FAIL tells the hilarious true story of a crew of genius misfits who set out to make comedy history… and succeeded in a way they never intended.
In a time when America's economy was crumbling and sense of community was in question, one guy left everything behind to see if he could survive solely on the support and goodwill of the 21st century's new town square: Craigslist.
The beautiful Shizuko and her husband Toyama Takayoshi have a loving relationship, But Takayoshi is getting older and isn't always able to perform. His primary source of gratification involves observing his wife in sadomasochistic scenarios so he commissions a painter, skilled in the arts of bondage to bring these fantasies to life. Soon, Shiziko becomes a willing and submissive participant in fulfilling the S&M fantasies of not only her husband but a slew of rich lecherous men.
A young agoraphobic woman is tormented by malevolent visions that begin to bleed into reality.
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.
Alienated teen Pauline struggles with the pressures of fitting into high school, pleasing her mother and a burning desire to lose her virginity. With a grotesque curiosity for the darker side of life, Pauline is considered a social outcast by everyone around her. Enticed by flesh, she retreats into her own fantasies and hopes to become a great surgeon - that is, if she doesn't go insane first.
The countryside isn't always as calm and peaceful as it's made out to be, and the animals on this farm are particularly agitated: a fox who mothers a family of chicks, a rabbit who plays the stork, and a duck who wants to be Santa Claus.
Commentator-comic Bill Maher plays devil's advocate with religion as he talks to believers about their faith. Traveling around the world, Maher examines the tenets of Christianity, Judaism and Islam and raises questions about homosexuality, proof of Christ's existence, Jewish Sabbath laws, violent Muslim extremists.
Beverly is the perfect happy homemaker, along with her doting husband and two children, but this nuclear family just might explode when her fascination with serial killers collides with her ever-so-proper code of ethics.
The master of a dorayaki pastry store hires a 76-year-old woman whose talents attract customers from all over. But she's hiding a troubling secret. Life's joys are found in the little details, and no matter what may be weighing you down, everyone loves a good pastry.
Two brothers return to the cult they fled from years ago to discover that the group's beliefs may be more sane than they once thought.
Thirty years after starring in "The Wizard of Oz," beloved actress and singer Judy Garland arrives in London to perform sold-out shows at the Talk of the Town nightclub. While there, she reminisces with friends and fans and begins a whirlwind romance with musician Mickey Deans, her soon-to-be fifth husband.
Two small-town singers chase their pop star dreams at a global music competition, where high stakes, scheming rivals and onstage mishaps test their bond.
Bud Baxter is a minor clerk in a huge New York insurance company, until he discovers a quick way to climb the corporate ladder. He lends out his apartment to the executives as a place to take their mistresses. Although he often has to deal with the aftermath of their visits, one night he's left with a major problem to solve.
A powerful and poetic short film that tells the little known history of Italian gay men being arrested and exiled to a remote island during Mussolini’s Fascist regime.
A historical account of military policy regarding homosexuality during World War II. The documentary includes interviews with several homosexual WWII veterans.
In 2005 the NGO Cultural Association Visible in Madrid begins to create a collection of gay-themed art (LGBT), with works donated by artists from around the world. The Visible Collection contains more than four thousand works of artists from thirty countries, what's making it in one of the world's largest of its kind, and now is looking for a space to be displayed. The documentary tells the story of how a project was realized that only seven years ago seemed impossible and now is looking for a "home", a museum to house the collection of a stable way and protect it from inclement weather and the vagaries of history and politics.
What is it about Speedos? Well here Australian director Tim Hunter is on a mission to find the answer to the question of why so many gay men can't seem to get enough of hunks in tight fitting trunks? Although somehow I think the answer can be found in the question! Anyway in a bid to discover the truth, Hunter has carried out a series of interviews with men who have more than a passing interest in this briefest of garment, including that of Speedo designer Peter Travis, who here relates his part in the history of 'the male equivalent of the Wonder Bra.'
It was 24 hours with him. I saw him shake his ass with a friend. Scrubbing tile corners. Have egg salad for lunch. Buy cleaning products. Rehearse in the studio. Playing with children on the grass. In a huge theatre, review texts about scenes of decolonization. Smoke one, or two. Problematizing on the bus. Undressing on the couch in my house. Sleeping without fitting into the bed because you are too tall. I saw the sun bursting on your skin in the morning and said goodbye. I thought a standard session wouldn't encompass the complexity of an intimate recording. So I was his voyeur for 24 hours. Uninterrupted.
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 this funny and erotic mockumentary, director Toby Ross takes an out of the box look at homosexuals - dividing them into two major groups: those who are into it for the sex and those who are looking for relationships. The live reenactments are an eyeful and it goes through all the levels and strands of gay guys. Out and proud, fringe homos, closet cases by design, country fags, and more.
Eulália, a conservative Portuguese mother, found out that her son who emigrated to Germany has become Fostter Riviera, the internationally awarded first Portuguese gay porn actor. She suffers with the distance, sometimes toned down through the computer that has become her main source of information and communication with her son. This documentary focuses on the long journey of this mother towards acceptance and endeavour to get closer to her son.
Scott Mills travels to Uganda where the death penalty could soon be introduced for being gay. The gay Radio 1 DJ finds out what it's like to live in a society which persecutes people like him and meets those who are leading the hate campaign.
Rick "Jim" Cassidy and Bob Mizer, one of the founders, and head, of the Athletic Model Guild, profile the A.M.G., its history, and how it operates. The purpose of the A.M.G. is to prepare (mostly gay) young men who meet its specifications for careers in modeling and showing themselves off as "gay-boy beefcake" (the male gay equivalent of young female models as "cheesecake"). Questions arise as to where these young men come from, how they are recruited, what it is like to work for A.M.G., and if all the young men who apply and are accepted are, indeed, gay.
A Documentary feature from the 90s about a group of young British boys whom form a dance troupe inspired by the Chippendales. We follow the boys and discover their humble backgrounds and the reasons behind their bizarre dancing aspirations.
A young teacher in Zurich in the 1950s falls in love with a transvestite star but is torn between his bourgeois existence and his commitment to homosexuality. He joins a gay organization that is eventually seen as the pioneer of gay emancipation in Europe.
The parallel lives of writer Truman Capote (1924-84) and playwright Tennessee Williams (1911-83): two friends, two geniuses who, while creating sublime works, were haunted by the ghosts of the past, the shadow of constant doubt, the demon of addictions and the blinding, deceptive glare of success.
A set of seven portraits consisting of personal accounts from the lives of gays and lesbians. The narration includes stories about coming out, bashing, cross-dressing and AIDS.
Originally created in support of charity, the popularity of the calendars has been credited for the increased fame of the Stade Français team, as well as rugby in general, in France. The calendars are part of a marketing strategy crafted by Max Guazzini, President of the rugby club. A savvy marketer who built the NRJ Radio group, he has successfully used the calendars to attract a new audience to rugby matches (live and on TV), such as women.
Gender Me is a road movie about Mansour’s voyage into the world of Islam. It is a personal odyssey through a world of taboos, filled with contradictory images. He explores questions regarding faith and gender in Islam with a special focus on the unusual stories of Muslim gays. Mansour is a homosexual Iranian refugee who has been living in Oslo for the past 18 years where he works as a pharmacist. Now he wants to travel back to Istanbul, where he lived for two years before he was granted asylum in Norway.
Male stripping is booming in the UK. Every weekend in most major cities, women are paying to see men get naked. The Dreamboys is the biggest male stripping agency of them all and ex-stripper David Richards is in charge. He claims to know what women want, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to give it to them. David is on the search for some 'fresh meat' to join his London troupe and meets the men that come forward to auditions. Who are they, why are they doing it and what impact is it having on their lives? Like never before, this First Cut film lifts the lid on this exotic world of sex, fantasy and temptation and shines a light on the private lives of the men whose job it is to bare all. First Cut is the critically acclaimed, eclectic documentary strand that showcases distinctive new films by up and coming directors.