Alone Out Here

Women 50 Minutes(zh)

A representation of queer and feminist imagery that was mainly shot in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, remote and developing areas in southwest China, and metropolitan cities like Beijing from 2000 to 2004 to document the social changes in contemporary China. The director sympathetically and erotically represents a variety of women, including women as laborers, women as prayers, women in the ground, women in marriage, and women who lie on the funeral pyre with their dead husbands. Her camera juxtaposes the mountains and rivers in old times, the commercialized handicrafts as exposition, the capital exploitation of the elders’ living space, and the erotic freedom of the young people in a changing city.

Mr. Gay Syria(en)

In focusing his attention on the competitors of Mr Gay Syria, director Ayse Toprak shatters the one-dimensional meaning of “refugee”. Using the pageant as a means of escape from political persecution, the organiser Mahmoud — already given asylum in Berlin — hopes to offer the winner a chance to travel as well as bring international attention to the life-threatening situations faced by LGBT Syrians.

An Inconvenient Truth(en)

A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.

Muxes(es)

Highlighting the unique culture of the Zapotec people of Oaxaca, Mexico, this groundbreaking documentary chronicles the lives of those who identify as muxes, a widely recognized third gender.

"An Untitled Film" by George Alshevskij-Jones(en)

“An Untitled Film” by George Alshevskij-Jones is a short documentary/visual essay about the struggles of moving to seek a better future in a different country. The research for the film was done by observing and talking to people who have left their home country. It doesn’t matter what country a person has left and in which country he has found himself, the general experiences and emotions stay the same. The most important message that I want the film to convey is that everything is possible and home is not a place on a map, but a place in the soul of each person that I spoke to. The unconventional way of showing many people as one is not just a way of making the film more convenient to create, but a way to fit a much information into one consistent image, that the audience is more likely to understand and perceive as the author intended it. My own experience blended in with the experiences of others.

Anticosti: La chasse au pétrole extrême(fr)

Queerama(en)

Created from a treasure trove of archive, Queerama traverses a century of gay experiences, encompassing persecution and prosecution, injustice, love and desire, identity, secrets, forbidden encounters, sexual liberation and pride. The soundtrack weaves the lyrics and music of John Grant, Goldfrapp and Hercules & Love Affair with the images and guides us intimately into the relationships, desires, fears and expressions of gay men and women in the 20th century – a century of incredible change.

Richard Fontaine's Days of Greek Gods(en)

Richard Fontaine and Bob Mizer started the current exploration of the male nude in film and photography. The two shared ideas props and models and reinvented some of the sexual icons that we all still recognise today. The gladiator the sailor, the cowboy… Starting with posing-straps and graduating to nudes their "art studies" enlisted the talents of up-and-coming actors and bodybuilders. This film recalls that era.

Carnations(en)

Seven strangers are interviewed to talk about the relationship they have with their mother.

Welcome to Chechnya(en)

This searing investigative work shadows a group of activists risking unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ program raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic. Unfettered access and a remarkable approach to protecting anonymity exposes this under-reported atrocity–and an extraordinary group of people confronting evil.

Survival in Berlin-Neukölln(de)

About Stefan Stricker, who calls himself Juwelia and has been running a gallery on Sanderstraße in Berlin Neukölln for many years. Every weekend he invites guests to shamelessly recount from his life and to sing poetic songs written with his friend from Hollywood Jose Promis. Juwelia has been poor and sexy all her life, has always struggled for recognition, but only partially.

The Polymath, or The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman(en)

A portrait of Samuel R. Delany, an award-winning African-American gay author whose credits include everything from science fiction to several issues of the Wonder Woman comic book. Using a range of experimental techniques and borrowed footage from Delany's home movies, Taylor captures his subject's thoughts on racism, violence, and his struggles with sexual identity.

Michael Lost and Found(en)

When a feature film is made about them seven years after their break-up, Benjie Nycum visits his ex-boyfriend Michael Glatze and finally tries to get answers about his bewildering shift from gay activist to ex-gay evangelical.

Romeo & Julius(da)

A young group of actors are preparing an updated version of Shakespeare's ROMEO & JULIET. Two boys perform the central roles - both of them struggling with their own questions of love alongside their roles on stage. And as rehearsals begin, reality soon starts to interfere with the play.

Secrets of the Gay Sauna(en)

Gay saunas are places where men meet strangers to have sex. With exclusive access to one Nottingham business, this candid one-off documentary enters the often controversial and always secretive world of the gay sauna for the very first time. The programme meets the people who go there for sexual pleasure - from teachers to plumbers to Tory councillors - and the staff who clean up after them.

Montgomery Clift(en)

A documentary incorporating footage of Montgomery Clift’s most memorable films; interviews with family and friends, and rare archival material stretching back to his childhood. What develops is the story of an intense young boy who yearned for stardom, achieved notable success in such classic films as From Here to Eternity and I Confess, only to be ruined by alcohol addiction and his inability to face his own fears and homosexual desires. Montgomery Clift, as this film portrays him, may not have been a happy man but he never compromised his acting talents for Hollywood.

Time(en)

Fox Rich, indomitable matriarch and modern-day abolitionist, strives to keep her family together while fighting for the release of her incarcerated husband. An intimate, epic, and unconventional love story, filmed over two decades.

Disclosure(en)

An 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.

Little Potato(en)

Wes Hurley's autobiographical tale of growing up gay in Soviet Union Russia, only to escape with his mother, a mail order bride, to Seattle to face a whole new oppression in his new Christian fundamentalist American dad.

T'Ain't Nobody's Bizness: Queer Blues Divas of the 1920s(en)

The 1920s saw a revolution in technology, the advent of the recording industry, that created the first class of African-American women to sing their way to fame and fortune. Blues divas such as Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Alberta Hunter created and promoted a working-class vision of blues life that provided an alternative to the Victorian gentility of middle-class manners. In their lives and music, blues women presented themselves as strong, independent women who lived hard lives and were unapologetic about their unconventional choices in clothes, recreational activities, and bed partners. Blues singers disseminated a Black feminism that celebrated emotional resilience and sexual pleasure, no matter the source.