In this experimental, self-ethnographic documentary, Tom Joslin blends breathtaking, moving snapshots from the natural world, filmic cultural touchstones, and cutting (pseudo) cinéma vérité to dissect and reassemble his gay identity despite constant warnings to stay in the closet. Blackstar sees Joslin and partner Mark Massi fleshing out their enduring commitment and obvious love for one another amidst the insecurity that a self-conscious documentary lens instills. As interviews with Joslin’s mother, father, and brothers attempt to break down the legitimacy of Joslin and Massi’s romance, the pair use everything at their disposal, including inspiration from gay revolutionaries and painfully honest conversations, to hold up their “abnormality” as a point of pride rather than shame. – Shayna Warner
Filmmaker Theo Anthony offers a far-ranging look at the biases in how people see things, focusing on the recorded image.
This film portrait of a new kind is a deep dive into the heart of the art scene of Los Angeles. From a ride on Sunset Boulevard in a convertible car at the sunrise, going through a lunch with the art dealer Patrick Painter and a visit to Peter Shire's studio... Having a beer and a deep talk with Paul McCarthy, calling Raymond Pettibon stuck in New-York or searching for Ed Ruscha in bars.... From Ariana Papademetropoulos opening exhibition to the visit of a car wreck with Umar Raschid... From the old house of Cary Grant to the dodgy underground of Downtown passing through Eugenio Lopez's private art collection on the Hollywood hills... Through intimate conversation, 24 Hour Sunset gives us access to the thoughts, inspirations and practice of legendary artists, world famous art dealers, appraised curators and collectors, as well as the young up coming scene of artists living in Los Angeles.
Kuyashii Gonzo: Blood Visions and Chaos Magic is a Gonzo documentary about trying to make a no-budget feature film against the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment, and death. To never give up, no matter how hard things get.
The personal stories lived by the Uncle, the Father and the Son, respectively, form a tragic experience that is drawn along a line in time. This line is comparable to a crease in the pages of the family album, but also to a crack in the walls of the paternal house. It resembles the open wound created when drilling into a mountain, but also a scar in the collective imaginary of a society, where the idea of salvation finds its tragic destiny in the political struggle. What is at the end of that line? Will old war songs be enough to circumvent that destiny?
Based upon a habitual fidget of the filmmaker involving the tags in his clothing, Reilly Mitchell explores the feelings of his past by removing something that has always stayed so close to him and turning it into something new.
Grandma Kham, an 87 year-old-woman, lives lone and is still strong enough to burn charcoal and weed out grass. But what does she have to go through along the way? And how will she prepare for her own final moment?
125 employees of the Catholic Church come out as queer! In the exclusive ARD documentary, believers in the service of the Catholic Church in Germany dare to go public together. People who identify as non-heterosexual talk about fighting for their church - sometimes at the risk of losing their jobs as a result. There are priests, religious brothers, parish assistants, diocese employees, religion teachers, kindergarten teachers, social workers and many more who report intimidation, denunciations, deep injuries, decades of hide and seek and double lives. The Catholics report a system in which pressure, fear and arbitrariness leave employees uncertain as to what exactly happens when they stand by their sexual orientation or identity. The investigative documentary listens to those who live their faith every day and are nevertheless degraded by the church as an institution.
X-ray images were invented in 1895, the same year in which the Lumière brothers presented their respective invention in what today is considered to be the first cinema screening. Thus, both cinema and radiography fall within the scopic regime inaugurated by modernity. The use of X-rays on two sculptures from the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum generates images that reveal certain elements of them that would otherwise be invisible to our eyes. These images, despite being generally created for technical or scientific purposes, seem to produce a certain form of 'photogénie': they lend the radiographed objects a new appearance that lies somewhere between the material and the ethereal, endowing them with a vaporous and spectral quality. It is not by chance that physics and phantasmagoria share the term 'spectrum' in their vocabulary.
Departing from peripheral details of some paintings of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, a female narrator unravels several stories related to the economic, social and psychological conditions of past and current artists.
German iconoclast filmmaker and gay-rights activist Rosa vonPraunheim examines his own life and career in the documentary Phooey Rosa! With a quickly paced editing style, the film is a mix of personal banter, candid interviews, and clips from his filmography. It also includes footage from his early film Bed Sausage to his later work Neurosia. At the age of 60, vonPraunheim reveals intimate details about his past relationships and his childhood growing up after WWII. He also implicates some of his friends and inspirations, including Luzi Kryn and Rainer Kranach.
After a premonition of an unusual bird, a father loses his voice. His daughter undertakes a search to rediscover him, through an intimate narrative that explores the past, the new facets and the silences of a man who is no longer the same.
A film that brandishes the documentry form and art to try to dismantle the stigma of being HIV positive that still persists in society. The film honours the past and the iconic Thom McGinty, the Diceman, who was one of the first to speak openly in Ireland about having AIDS but, other than that, it’s very firmly rooted in the here and now. Based on a theatre show, the stories in this film move between bodies of young men, migrant women, drag artists and activists. A form-flipping documentary, it features a cast of actors as well as ordinary people coming out on screen for the first time.
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.
Roads fall into the sea and a travelogue breaks against the landscape.
A filmmaker’s meditation on loss and grief. A digital eulogy and swan song to his creative partner and best friend. Mixed media woven into the fading daydream of their time together.
Tommy sets out to document walking. He meets a colorful cast of characters, attaches microphones to his feet, and contends with what it means to capture movement on film.
Art is a freedom for those who make it and for those who look at it. A freedom that ends when the violence starts. In Mexico, every day eleven women are murdered and in more than ninety percent of the cases impunity prevails. Through the testimony of seven women, this documentary essay reflects on femicide and the destruction that this leaves a country and its culture. Because in times of horror, art cannot be the same, every time a woman is murdered, a museum or a library collapses in the world.
An intimate glimpse into 3 years of serene moments, compiling video, polaroids and other things that were lying around when editing.
The voice of historian Aleks Buda echoes into the present – words, met by darkness, the absence of things. How to confront history when there are no objects to which this history adheres? How to revisit a history marked by gaps?
In both amateur and professional sports, being gay remains taboo. Few dare to come out of the closet for fear of being stigmatized, and for many, the pressure to perform is compounded by a further strain: whether or not to affirm their sexual identity. Standing on the Line takes a fresh and often moving look at some of our gay athletes, who share their experiences with the camera. They’ve set out to overcome prejudice in the hopes of changing things for the athletes of tomorrow.