A Long Way From Heaven: The Rainbow Y Story (2024)

Dragphoria

Dragphoria is a short film about drag and identity, finding yourself in a noisy crowd, and slowly accepting yourself after a long-awaited denial.

A Deeper Love: The Story of Miss Peppermint

Drag Race star Peppermint takes center stage in this up close and personal documentary about her journey with fame, identity, and the art of drag. Sharing her story alongside a close network of trans individuals, one of the world’s favorite drag performers takes you inside her rise from humble beginnings to her current reign as outspoken trailblazer for the trans community.

İris

Biographical trans documentary film in which Iris Mozalar, a young artist, shares her diversity of being a bisexual transgender woman, the process of creating herself and her reflections against society.

After Stonewall

This sequel to "Before Stonewall" documents the history of gay and lesbian life from the riots at Stonewall in 1969 to the present. Narrated by Melissa Etheridge, the film explains the work, struggles, victories, and defeats the gay community has weathered to become a vibrant and integral part of North American society.

A Jihad for Love

A documentary on gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims across the Muslim and Western worlds.

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.

Somewhere Within Me

A tender exploration of friendship, identity, and transformation, this film follows Brahel and Andoeni, who met as children and grew up together in Guadalajara. Though their romantic relationship eventually ended, their deep friendship endured. Years later, after Brahel’s gender transition, the two reconnect and rediscover their bond. Through a rich tapestry of archival footage, music, intimate moments, and unspoken emotions, the narrative unfolds as a heartfelt journey of reconnection, vulnerability, and lasting affection.

Carthage

While seething mobs converged around them, the Prophet Joseph and his brethren quietly submitted themselves to imprisonment in Carthage Jail. Now, as never before, audiences are invited to witness the events of the days preceding the martyrdom. Based on documents handed down through the generations, Carthage offers a glimpse into the turmoil and testimony of the men whose place in history was forever defined by what was to come - a jailer seeking to protect his charges, a governor caught between the persecuted and their persecutors, and a group of Saints whose faith and brotherhood stands as the ultimate witness of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Burlesque

Student documentary exploring the world of burlesque as a space for artistic expression and personal liberation, where performers channel their creativity and sensuality. Through their voices, they speak about the power of the stage to reconnect with their bodies and establish a deep connection with the audience. Burlesque is presented as a feminist, inclusive, and supportive environment, celebrating gender and body diversity. The action takes place at the Wiggle Room, located in Montreal. It is the only burlesque cabaret in Canada, known for its warm atmosphere and strong sense of community.

REEXISTIR

A documentary web-series that presents experiences and resistance in the fight stories of the LGBT community. These stories are told in order to generate more empathy and compassion among people inside and outside the community, and especially, to bring a message of hope, strength, and resilience to all LGBTs, encouraging us to keep our heads up and continue to resist.

Dolores guapa!

Religious-based images and traditions permeate the lives of all the people who inhabit Seville. Historically, the city's mariquitas ("sissies") have also assimilated them in their childhood and, through them, have been creating their own encounter spaces and their own codes. Nowadays, new dissident identities continue to respond to them: they participate or distance themselves, they continue what exists or transform it. This film looks at these traditions from a perspective always relegated to the margins.

Victoria

In a small and conservative city in Jalisco, Alex builds his identity and defends his dreams: fatherhood, music, being a man.

Lake

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 First Lady

Fearing for her life, Israeli transgender pioneer Efrat Tilma fled the country as a teenager. Now in her seventies, she must fight for her freedom once again, as the country spirals into political and social regression.

I'm Not Everything I Want to Be

After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Libuše Jarcovjáková, a young female photographer, strives to break free from the constraints of Czechoslovak normalization and embarks on a wild journey towards freedom, capturing her experiences on thousands of subjective photographs.

Imagine… Pet Shop Boys: Then and Now

Featuring exclusive access to their recent tour and their new album, this documentary reveals the fascinating world of Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe.

Pride & Protest

In the wake of the Birmingham protests against LGBTQ+ relationship education in primary schools, a team of queer community reporters of colour challenge homophobia and call out racism in LGBTQ+ spaces.

P.S. Burn This Letter Please

A box found in an abandoned storage unit unearths a time capsule of correspondences from a forgotten era: the underground drag scene in 1950s New York City. Firsthand accounts and newly discovered footage help cast a long overdue spotlight on the unsung pioneers of drag.

The Times of Harvey Milk

Harvey Milk was an outspoken human rights activist and one of the first openly gay U.S. politicians elected to public office; even after his assassination in 1978, he continues to inspire disenfranchised people around the world.

Lioness: The Nicola Adams Story

The extraordinary rise of Olympic boxing champion, record-breaker, feminist and LGBT icon Nicola Adams. From the streets of Leeds to the world stage, Adams fought her way to the top and changed the game. This, is her story.

Poly-Love

A documentary that approaches polyamory from the intimate point of view of an Afro-American family who decided to live an authentic life without denying the option of diversity in their love and family.

1325 Kilometers 227 Days

Vitor and Gustavo decided, in January 2020, to start a long-distance relationship, and were planning to meet again in a few months. Until COVID stopped them. This is the story of how they overcame the difficulties of time and distance through a lot of love and through Whatsapp audio messages.

Sanctuary

Sanctuary explores queer spirituality and utopian sexualities through the figure of Purusha Androgyne Larkin (1934–1988), a monk, pioneering gay filmmaker, and self-proclaimed cosmic-erotic mystic. Larkin’s 1981 book, 'The Divine Androgyne According to Purusha', challenged repression with a spiritual vision rooted in eroticism and presented a radical path to cosmic-erotic consciousness through ‘extreme’ forms of sexual pleasure. Sanctuary explores Larkin's attempt to form a utopian, pleasure-based spiritual community, and considers the complex legacies of his ideas in queer culture. Shot on 16mm, the film weaves together the voices of Larkin’s friends and followers, creating a portrait in absentia of a figure ahead of his time.

A Worm in the Heart

Shot in six cities along the Trans-Siberian Railway, this documentary details the current state of the Russian queer community - giving both broad societal overviews and deeply personal accounts from activists and non-activists alike. The film follows Paul Rice and Liam Jackson Montgomery, a gay couple from Ireland, as they travel on the Trans-Siberian Railway, meeting with a diverse range of LGBT+ people-from Nobel Peace prize nominees and drag queens to those who have suffered brutal homophobic and transphobic attacks.

Apolo

After naturally conceiving a child during the COVID-19 pandemic, trans-centered couple Isis and Lourenzo begin a journey across Brazil in search of respectful and specialized prenatal care, while fighting for their family's rights in what kills the most trans people in the world.

Kiss/Kiss

Hosted by Micaella Raz and Zsara Laxamana. Your favorite VMX crushes kiss, lick, and tease each other in the sexiest girl-on-girl scenes ever caught on camera. Every touch is electric. Every moan, real.

The Transformation

Ricardo was once Sara, a homeless HIV positive transvestite, living in the underbelly of Manhattan. Today he is a churchgoing, married man, "saved" by a Dallas ministry. He has renounced his homosexuality, but is his conversion complete? Susana Aiken and Carlos Aparicio offer an intimate look at Ricardo's transformation.

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.

Rothenthurm

A documentary about a proposed military training area in Rothenthurm, Central Switzerland, and the village's resistance to those plans.

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.

Orlando, My Political Biography

Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel "Orlando: A Biography" follows the centuries-spanning life of a young nobleman who awakens to find that they are a woman. Almost a century after its publication, Paul B. Preciado claims that fiction has become reality and Orlando's story lies at the root of all contemporary trans and non-binary life.

Millions Can Walk

Hundreds of thousands of Indian men and women – indigenous inhabitants and landless farmers – demand their right to existence by making a 400 kilometre protest march from Gwalior to Delhi. How can one fight for one’s rights without using violence? With such an important contemporary question, the film spreads far beyond the borders of India. It shows the multiple facets of this imposing protest march and focuses as well on the daily realities of these proud people.

Girl Like You

Over six years, a couple battles to stay together as one of them transitions genders; confronting the effects of new body parts, changing gender roles as well as navigating their own evolving sexual identities.

The Rainbow Passage

Following a year in Cadance and Amanda's gender transition, this intimate documentary charts not only their personal transformation but the building of a life and community together in regional New South Wales.

Simeiz

Simeiz is a small village on the southern coast of Crimea which is temporarily occupied by Russia. In the Soviet era, an underground gay resort arose in the village. It started with a small nudist beach; a popular bar and night club, Hedgehogs, appeared later in independent Ukraine. From the 1990s on, Simeiz became a significant meeting point for members of the LGBTQ+ community from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Every year, about 4,000 people visited the place before the temporary occupation of Crimea by Russia in 2014. At the moment, Simeiz, as a gay resort, is threatened with disappearance due to the homophobic laws of the Russian Federation. If this happens, old photos and videos will be the only evidence of its existence and extinction.

Lyne Lapointe – L'art et la matière

Everything about the Quebec visual artist Lyne Lapointe reflects the grip of art on her life. Lesbian and feminist, she tirelessly highlights in her work the challenging position of women in society and in the art world. This concern is the common thread in the story of her life and projects. Despite a serious accident that ended her first series, revolutionary urban creations that earned her international reputation, she reinvents her approach with the tenacity that characterizes her, ultimately becoming the subject of significant exhibitions in Quebec, Canada, and abroad.

The Big One

The Big One is an investigative documentary from director Michael Moore who goes around the country asking why big American corporations produce their product abroad where labor is cheaper while so many Americans are unemployed, losing their jobs, and would happily be hired by such companies as Nike.

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

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.

Bulgaria in Trance

“Bulgaria in Trance” aims to make an impartial portrait of the trans community in Bulgaria by telling the personal stories of the trans women who took part in the exhibition “The Other Bulgarians”.

Radical Harmonies

Interviews and performance footage are used to provide an overview of the women's music scene.

No One Would Go

A documentary that covers psychiatric and psychological "treatments" including physical interventions aimed at "correcting" LGBTQ+ people in Turkey and the experiences of LGBTQ+ people who have been exposed to these methods. 

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.

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.

Kelet

Kelet is a twentysomething black trans woman, whose greatest dream is to be on the cover of Vogue magazine. For the Finnish-born and Manchester-raised Kelet, such models as Naomi Campbell and Iman served as role models giving her strength – and during the darkest times, kept her alive. After coming out, then 19-year-old Kelet was cut off from her family and she moved back to Finland on her own.

Persecution Blues: the Battle for the Tote!

In 2010, the iconic Tote Hotel – last bastion of Melbourne’s vibrant music counterculture – was forced to close by unfair laws. Filmed over 7 years, “Persecution Blues” depicts the struggle of more than 20,000 fans – and the bands who inspire them – to preserve their history and protect their future, and puts the audience on the front line of an epic-scale culture war.

Calls from Moscow

A prefabricated estate in Moscow is meant as a transit stop for four queer Cuban exiles – until Russia’s attack on Ukraine radically shifts their outlook. Moving telephone calls back home provide the structure of Luís Alejandro Yero’s debut work.

Becoming Ruby

Follow Ruby Chopstix, Canada’s first drag artist-in-residence, as they navigate the complexity of being an underrepresented drag performer while creating a special showcase to create space for other queer BIPOC performers.

I Smell Wedding Bells

​Whereas Minki’s older brother benefits from the social stability provided by marrying his girlfriend, Mingi and his partner run into legal hurdles regarding marriage and visas, prompting them to endless search for alternatives. Simultaneously, the documentary explores a gay man’s worries about coming out and marriage through the experiences of straight family members who are coming to terms with what it means to have a queer family member.

From Spikes to Spindles

This raw, gutsy portrait of New York's Chinatown captures the early days of an emerging consciousness in the community. We see a Chinatown rarely depicted, a vibrant community whose young and old join forces to protest police brutality and hostile real estate developers. With bold strokes, it paints an overview of the community and its history, from the early laborers driving spikes into the transcontinental railroad to the garment workers of today.

Home Movies

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

Dislocation Blues

Filmed during the 2016 Standing Rock protests in South Dakota, Sky Hopinka's Dislocation Blues offers a portrait of the movement and its water protectors, refuting grand narratives and myth-making in favour of individual testimonials.

BEAT. Contour. Snatched. How Drag Queens Shaped the Biggest Makeup Trends

How drag queens sharing tips and tricks in dressing rooms shaped the face of today’s mainstream makeup industry.

DeRosa: Life, Love & Art in Transition

Chronicles the extraordinary life of artist Felicia DeRosa, who came out as transgender at the age of 41. With her life, career, and marriage potentially at risk, Felicia embarks on a journey towards authenticity and self-acceptance.