Sometimes, 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.
Sometimes, 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.
2024-03-08
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Lake gazes down at a still body of water from a birds-eye view, while a group of artists peacefully float in and out of the frame or work to stay at the surface. As they glide farther away and draw closer together, they reach out in collective queer and desirous exchanges — holding hands, drifting over and under their neighbors, making space, taking care of each other with a casual, gentle intimacy while they come together as individual parts of a whole. The video reflects on notions of togetherness and feminist theorist Silvia Federici’s call to “reconnect what capitalism has divided: our relation with nature, with others, and our bodies.”
The true story of the students of Brigham Young University's queer underground, as they lit the school's iconic "Y" in rainbow colors. But, A Long Way From Heaven does a lot more than tell the story of the Rainbow Y. It outlines the history of queer treatment at BYU - the good (where it exists), the bad, and the very, very ugly. The film combines new, original footage with a huge variety of historical images, videos, newspaper articles, and other mixed media from every conceivable source to tell the story of BYU's queer students, and the bravery and risks they constantly take to make their voices heard.
"There are things in this world that are yet to be named" centers around Solanum plastisexum - an Australian tomato whose sexual expression is unpredictable and unstable, challenging even the fluid norms of the plant kingdom. Footage of the team of botanists who recently used their Solanum research to explode notions of sexual normativity in any plant or animal is combined with a voiceover of letters sent between science writer Rachel Carson and her lover Dorothy Freeman. "There are things in this world that are yet to be named" is a meditation on erasure, indefinability, and the intersection of queer and environmental histories.
When a tragedy strikes the worlds most unique skate park, a dogged group of old school skaters, BMXers and street artists team up to fight for its survival.
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.
A panorama of Brazilian popular music from the 60s and 70s through the musical group Novos Baianos. A retrospective of the community lifestyle adopted by its members and the influence inherited from singer João Gilberto.
When artist Erin Johnson and film editor Charlotte Prager moved into a seaside house in 2021, they knew only a handful of facts about the two women who designed and built it in 1971. The two women - art collector Mary-Leigh Smart and artist Beverly Hallam - were exacting about their specifications for the house, and they lived there together for over forty years. In "To be Sound is to be Solid," the filmmakers venture to decipher the house's opaque queer history by studying its complicated and circuitous floor plan. "To be Sound is to be Solid" is a film of layered intimacies and vicarious encounters. By investigating indefinability, erasure, and transparency in queer archives and scientific research, the film builds connections between lesbian, architectural, and environmental histories.
Corrupt Colour follows childhood friends and self-proclaimed internet pop-stars, Emily and Gia as they set up their first live concert but their delusions of grandeur are compromised when the live show of their dreams becomes a nightmare. The show must go on and with the help of their closest friends, irreverent leads Emily and Gia are forced to reckon with their true place in the public eye. With poignant lyrics, loud personalities, and unique creative decisions, Emily and Gia take us on a hilarious and melancholy journey through identity in the digital age that leaves us all asking "who am I trying to be?"
Dom Barbudo, a pioneer in the São Paulo gay and BDSM community and elected first Mister Leather Brasil in 2017, prepares to pass on the mantle to one of the four contestants in the second edition of the contest.
In the same vein as Meri's other documentations, this one takes advantage of the glasnost policy to discuss the social and ecologic impact of the Russian oil industry on the natives and the lands they inhabit.
With a massive, unrestricted salvage area, the Yellowknife dump is one of the last and largest open dumps in North America. People from all walks of life go there, to search for everything from tools to clothes to home décor. This documentary follows a group of passionate salvagers over five years as the dump evolves and eventually succumbs to the inexorable efforts of city bureaucrats to subject it to sensible regulations and controls.
In this documentary, director Rhys Ernst tells the previously untold histories of transgender pioneers. Trans people have always been here, throughout time, often hidden in plain sight.
This short documentary examines an innovative educational program developed by John and Gerti Murdoch to teach Cree children their language via Cree folklore, photographs, artifacts, and books that were written and printed in the community. Made as part of the NFB’s groundbreaking Challenge for Change series, Cree Way shows that local control of the education curriculum has a place in Indigenous communities.
Across the installation's multiple channels, the camera circles a group of artists as they sit together in a field eating, licking, and squeezing ripe tomatoes. Throughout the ever-changing scene, kisses, whispers, and caresses are shared with a casual, gentle intimacy that reflects interconnectivity and abundance. These queer and desirous exchanges constitute a portrait of collectivity wherein individuals come together as distinct parts of a whole.
Six California kids test their brains and talents against students in Odyssey of the Mind, a problem-solving competition requiring mechanical, creative and intellectual skills. With little money and zero adult participation, the teens build a robot to tell a story about bullying, exclusion and mental health. But how does their solution measure up?
Sarah Kamya is a school counselor in New York City. She began the project Little Diverse Libraries on June 3rd and has already raised over $13,000, supported black owned bookstores, and has distributed 775 books to Little Free Libraries across all 50 states. Sarah is helping educate communities while most importantly amplifying and empowering black voices.
Letter from Tokyo is a documentary film that looks at art, culture and politics in Tokyo, Japan. Shot over three months during the summer of 2018, and with a particular focus on grass roots arts initiatives, the use of public space, and queer politics, the film provides a snapshot of Japan’s capital in the run up to the 2020 olympics.
Heiko, 51, a sheet metal former trained in GDR times, unemployed since the fall of the wall, pisses on his bed and on the carpet. The film encounters Heiko's dysfunctional family history and his decision to be alone forever. Piss and GDR, a reflection of how deep the consequences of the fall of the Wall are still in the bodies of some people to this day.
A glimpse into a visual representation of memory; A Christmas-time series of meals, coffees, and movies, with friends, lovers, and housemates. Faced with the compounding of faces and places, each moment begins to collide with one another: voices are muddled, and faces are broken. How is memory created? How are they separated from one another?