Desire/Ability (2023)

The Carnival

Since they were children, every summer they used to participate together in the traditional carnivals of their hometown. This magical celebration, transform men of the community into dionysiac figures with makeup, coloured costumes, glitter and feathers. Alcohol, friendship and parties out of control become the limelight. Boundaries get blurred with the heat of the sun at the edge of the imposing Paraná River.

Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened...

This film from acclaimed theater director Lonny Price charts the journey of the original cast of Stephen Sondheim's "Merrily We Roll Along" in the 30-plus years since the musical debuted on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre in 1981.

Sex Is...

Marc Huestis edits interviews with 15 men, including himself, around a set of topics starting with "what is sex?" The men are gay, living in or near San Francisco. They talk about their first sexual experiences, the gay scene in San Francisco in the late 1970s, the pall cast by AIDS, the safe-sex movement, getting into serious relationships, the illness and death of partners, pornography, S/M and pain, race and stereotypes, personal fantasies, and bliss. Huestis has a thesis, that sex is going to be with us, so how best do we embrace it? His 15 subjects, archival footage, clips from porn films, and close-up looks at men loving men flesh out various answers.

Paternal Instinct

In contrast to the recent spate of gay parent documentaries Paternal Instinct is a fascinating and absorbing insight into the breeding process. We follow two gay men in their search for a suitable surrogate mother, a Wiccan from Maine, and then the agonizing three year long process of trying to get her pregnant. There is the anguish as they discover the impotent link in the fathering chain, the comedy of the repetitive conception rituals and the ecstasy of the birth of their child. With unfettered access to the participants, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Murray Nossel charts every step, and the camera never flinches. Whether you're into the whole parenting thing or not, the sheer humanity of this piece makes it totally absorbing.

In Their Room: San Francisco

An intimate and erotic film about 8 gay men alone in their San Francisco bedrooms

Acts of Love

When his older boyfriend loses interest in him, the filmmaker relocates to Chicago and uses dating apps to cast new lovers in an amorphous project that his mother hates.

Zona Rosa

"Zona Rosa" is a documentary about the strippers who work in the gay clubs in Mexico City's famous district, the Zona Rosa. Christian Miranda gives us a tour though his professional and personal life while working as a cage-dancer stripper at one of Mexico City's famous gay nightclubs. Along with Christian we meet other strippers, patrons of the clubs and the club mangers. The nightlife, the scene, the money and the consequences are all on display as we tour through the notorious reality that gives the Zona Rosa its name.

Sex/Life in L.A.

A look at the sex lives of the guys who make L.A. adult movies.

Mexican Men

Who’s up for a sensual, seductive trip with some of the hottest Latin men that have ever graced the Silver Screen? ‘Mexican Men’ collects five of the most accomplished gay shorts from one of the homes of groundbreaking queer cinema. From short encounters, emerging love stories and deeply touching connections, these short films are sure to stir the heart... and body. Includes: Atmosphere [Atmósfera] (2010); To Live [Vivir] (2003); Tremulous [Trémulo] (2015); Wandering Clouds [Nubes flotantes] (2014); Young Man on the Bar Masturbating with Rage and Nerve [Muchacho en la barra se masturba con rabia y osadía] (2015).

I Am Divine

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.

Bridegroom

A documentary that tells the emotional journey of Shane and Tom, two young men in a loving and committed relationship — a relationship that was cut tragically short by a misstep off the side of a roof.

Everything at Once (Paco & Manolo's Gaze)

Paco and Manolo are two Catalan photographers from the outskirts of Barcelona who have been working together for thirty years as if they were a single person, capturing their images in Kink magazine, a very personal photography fanzine with a homoerotic aesthetic of Mediterranean essence.

Beyond Limits

A compelling British documentary following ten amateur athletes as they train for and compete in Ironman 70.3 Swansea. With themes of resilience, inclusion, and mental strength, the film is directed by Raymond Mouzon and edited by 18-year-old autistic filmmaker Sean Smith.

Follow My Voice: With the Music of Hedwig

One record producer, the creators of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" and top indie rock artists come together to create a tribute album benefiting the Hetrick-Martin Institute, home of the Harvey Milk School- the first accredited high school in the country for LGBTQ youth. "Follow My Voice: With the Music of Hedwig" weaves the compelling, courageous stories of four students at this controversial school with a unique chronicle of the yearlong creation of "Wig in a Box," the album whose songs poignantly echo these teens' struggles and aspirations. Through a dramatic and vibrant combination of verite documentation, student video diaries and rare in-studio scenes of artists recording tracks, "Follow My Voice" offers a powerful and poignant look at this unlikely intersection of youth, gender and rock. Includes studio sessions from Yoko Ono, Rufus Wainwright, The Bens, The Breeders, Yo La Tengo, John Cameron Mitchell, They Might Be Giants and more.

Putito

Putito is a production with no specific genre, where reality and fiction blend through a testimony written by José Carlos Henríquez - a feminist activist and male prostitute who plays himself in the project. Available in a censored and uncensored version.

Welcome to Chechnya

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.

Mr. Gay Syria

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.

Ecosexual

Ecosexual is a poetic monologue set in the Portuguese Mediterranean coast in Algarve about loving and making love with nature. It presents the male body as erotic object and as thinking, feeling subject. Through the senses of taste, touch, smell and sight, the protagonist loses himself in a communion with the natural world.

I Am My Own Woman

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.

Our Gay Wedding: The Musical

On 29 March 2014 same-sex marriage became legal in England and Wales. Take a front row seat at one of the first gay weddings which will be an extraordinary ceremony in more ways than one - it's a musical.Grooms Benjamin Till and Nathan Taylor have written and staged their entire wedding as a musical – with sung vows, sung readings, a singing registrar and show-stopping ensembles featuring the whole congregation of family, friends and special guests. Even the grooms’ mums sing a heartfelt duet.

Secret Santa Sex Party

A group of older gay men get together every month for companionship, camaraderie, and sex.

The Homosexuals

On March 7, 1967, 40 million Americans tuned in to watch CBS Reports: The Homosexuals, network television’s first documentary on homosexuality. Near the top of the program, host and interviewer Mike Wallace calls homosexuals “the most despised minority in the United States.” The hour that follows is filled with salacious location footage, sermonizing therapists, and shadowed interviews with distraught homosexuals.

Connection | Isolation

Connection | Isolation presents eight intimate portraits of trans and post-gender individuals navigating the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Amidst moments of connection and isolation, these participants reveal a deepening awareness of gender, their bodies, and trans community. Created by an all trans and queer crew, this hybrid documentary film interlaces portraits with reenactments, integrating archival material documenting what so many experienced and many still do.

Limited Partnership

LIMITED PARTNERSHIP is the love story between Filipino-American Richard Adams and Australian Tony Sullivan, who, in 1975, became one of the first same-sex couples in the world to be legally married. After applying for a green card for Tony based on their marriage, the couple received a denial letter from the Immigration and Naturalization Service stating, 'You have failed to establish that a bona fide marital relationship can exist between two faggots.' Outraged at this letter, and to prevent Tony's impending deportation, the couple sued the U.S. government, filing the first federal lawsuit seeking equal treatment for a same-sex marriage in U.S. history. This tenacious story of love, marriage and immigration equality is as precedent setting as it is little known... until now.

Home Movies

In this home movie collection of gay men, memory serves as an act of hope, power, and above all, resilience.

Blow Job

Andy Warhol directs a single 35-minute shot of a man's face to capture his facial expressions as he receives the sexual act depicted in the title.

Unconfessions

Luiz Roberto Galizia died very young, but he left behind a wealth of personal archives. 30 years later, his niece Ana Galizia plunges into these archives to follow the traces of this uncle she never met.

Prüdes Hollywood - Laster, Lust und Leidenschaft im Film

In recent years, Hollywood productions have turned away from sensuality. Is the sex scene on the verge of extinction or reinvention? Alongside film professionals and researchers, this documentary deciphers a trend that speaks volumes about the evolution of the industry and our societies.

Daddies

There is always the first time you are called a daddy. It’s more than just a question of age. Leather Daddies, Daddy Bears and Daddies that don’t fit into the usual categories. They talk about their Daddy identity, gay relationships, polyamory, and appetite for sex. Monogamy and open relationships co-exist in San Francisco as they do everywhere, but nowhere else has so many polyamorous men, men who embrace multiple love in their own personal way within the community. It is not just daddy/son, there are also guys in a number of relationships, or men in triads or foursomes.

Hold on Tight

A short documentary exploring the ways LGBT couples show affection, and how small interactions like holding hands in public can carry, not only huge personal significance, but also the power to create social change.

Partners

18 partners discuss the choices they’ve made in deciding on their mates. At its heart, this unscripted documentary film is about acceptance; a gentle message that we shouldn’t judge the choices of others, even if they seem a little different.

Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat

Exploring the pre-fame years of the celebrated American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, and how New York City, its people, and tectonically shifting arts culture of the late 1970s and '80s shaped his vision.

Novena

In 2012, Stephen Vaughan and Kay Ferreter are invited to address the congregation at St. Joseph's Redemptorists Church in Dundalk, Ireland for the Solemn Novena Festival. In a powerful speech, the pair describe their experiences being gay and lesbian in Ireland, feeling excluded by Catholic doctrine, and the importance of a more inclusive church.

Is There Anybody Out There?

While navigating daily discrimination, a filmmaker who inhabits and loves her unusual body searches the world for another person like her, and explores what it takes to love oneself fiercely despite the pervasiveness of ableism.

Mon amour

Mourning his boyfriend Frédéric's death from an overdose, the French filmmaker David Teboul goes to Siberia on a ritual journey. Out here, under the enormous dome of the skies, he finds the free space to disentangle his thoughts again. And in the villages, both young and old people unexpectedly turn out to be prepared to respond to his invitation to talk about an event that changed their lives. Life, death, love and existence.

Flee

Recounted mostly through animation to protect his identity, Amin looks back over his past as a child refugee from Afghanistan as he grapples with a secret he’s kept hidden for 20 years.

Better Off Dead?

A documentary on assisted suicide, authored by actor and disability rights activist Liz Carr.

Carlotta's Face

We all share the same kind of brain yet everybody has a different view of the world around us. As a very intriguing example, Carlotta vividly explains how a world without faces does look like. She suffers from the miswiring of a tiny brain region that makes it impossible for her to see and remember faces as a complete construct, called prosopagnosia or face blindness.

101 Rent Boys

Paid 50 dollars for their time, 101 male prostitutes -- spanning all ages, ethnicities, and personal backgrounds -- are questioned by the filmmakers about their lives.

The Scandalous Adventures of Lord Byron

“The first rockstar”, “Crazy, evil and dangerous”. This is how Rupert Everett introduces us to the British romantic poet Lord Byron. Between 1809 and 1810, his daring and eccentric personality led him on a journey from Portugal to Istanbul, through high society gatherings, Turkish baths and brothels. He leaps from one adventure to another, passing from one lover to another, causing scandal with his wild behavior. Ironic and entertaining narrator Rupert Everett accurately recounts Byron’s feats in this episodic, on-the-road period piece produced by Channel 4.

Paragraph 175

During the Nazi regime, there was widespread persecution of homosexual men, which started in 1871 with the Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code. Thousands were murdered in concentration camps. This powerful and disturbing documentary, narrated by Rupert Everett, presents for the first time the largely untold testimonies of some of those who survived.

Alfredo Doesn't Like Goodbyes

Based on family interviews and records of his trajectory, the director André Medeiros Martins performs an analysis of his mother's life history while documenting his own journey through self-knowledge. André is an artist obsessed with sex and who tries to find the reasons for these obsessions in stories about his late mother. From the exhibition of his works and reports from family members, he creates this auto-fictional documentary.

Hawking: Can You Hear Me?

A documentary telling the remarkable human story of Stephen Hawking. For the first time, the personal archives and the testimonies of his closest family reveal both the scale of Hawking's triumphs and the real cost of his disability and success.

Favela Gay

Favela Gay tells the story of eleven individuals in their own words. Living in eight slums (favelas) in Rio de Janeiro, these members of the LGBTQ community – two transgender women, a crossdressing man, a travesti prostitute, a famous carnival dancer, two community activists, and even a young man who used to be transgender, but transitioned back – have fought prejudice and seen some of the most unsavoury sides of the city.

Willem and Frieda: Defying the Nazis

Willem was an artist who lived openly as a gay man at a time when few did. Frieda was a well-connected musician who became the first woman to lead an orchestra. We learn of their early lives and the selfless decisions that informed their devotion to the anti-Nazi cause, often at great personal risk. The gentle revelation of these extraordinary lives is gradually revealed through archive footage, skillfully combined with photographs and interviews with experts, journalists and family members.

Only Andy

Many of us experience sexual desires in many different shapes and forms, yet there continues to be a certain stigma about expressing them openly. Adult worker, Andy Lee, and his co-workers share their own insightful and interesting perspectives on the adult industry in a bid to inspire people to open up to each other, and to further shed some light on the frequently misunderstood adult industry.

Outrage

An indictment of closeted politicians who lobby for anti-gay legislation in the US.