for us, an essay (2024)

Slutty Summer

Hunky writer Markus returns home to find his boyfriend of four years naked with another man. Newly single, he begins waiting tables at a swinging Chelsea hotspot where the indelible supporting cast of co-workers offers conflicting directions on the off-road map to love and lust in New York City. Peter insists on holding out for "the one", and Marilyn vows by her "dating commandments." Meanwhile, lascivious Luke promises the film its title by delivering firecracker quips on the joys of his sexcapades. He believes that sleeping around is the best medicine for a broken heart. Despite disillusion, Markus falls for gorgeous model Tyler who doesn't "do relationships" because how can you promise to love somebody forever? Surprising twists, and unlikely advice await, but by the end of one unforgettable SLUTTY SUMMER, happily ever after may just be the answer. Written

Flat Girls

Police daughters' bond tested in a heartfelt coming-of-age tale of love, friendship, and life's complexities.

The Paradise of Thorns

An unmarried gay couple creates a home and establishes a durian farm together. After one partner's sudden death, the deceased's family claims their assets due to the absence of legal marriage recognition. The surviving partner fights to recover their shared property and protect the life they built together.

Perfect Endings

Like the perfect ending of a great film - that is the way filmmaker João describes the end of his 10-year relationship with Hugo. Despite breaking up, they remained best friends. However, reentering the dating scene brought a whirlwind of emotions, revealing that reality can’t be controlled like a movie script.

Happy Together

A gay couple from Hong Kong takes a trip to Argentina in search of a new beginning but instead begins drifting even further apart.

Love in Country

It's 1968. Ian and John, two young point men in love in the midst of the Vietnam War, lead their squad in a desperate attempt to survive a botched Phoenix Mission, despite their Captain who has lost his humanity and who will use any means to win, including sacrificing the squad.

Bodies of Desire

Using Varsha Panikar's poetry series by the same name, it follows the journey of a poet as they rediscover love, passion, and identity after encountering their muse.

Red Yellow Pink

The story of a son and his mother. He: homosexual. She: strictly Roman Catholic. Two different worlds - a conflict is starting. Can love overcome all prejudices? A film against discrimination. A movie for acceptance.

East Side Story

Diego is a gay but closeted Hispanic chef living in East Los Angeles who works in the restaurant operated by his grandmother. Frustrated by the secretive lifestyle he shares with his similarly closeted lover, Pablo, Diego finds himself attracted to Wesley, one of the openly gay Caucasian men he feels are gentrifying his neighborhood. Their relationship pushes Diego to consider the possibility of a life he had never imagined.

Dog Tags

Raised in a single parent family by his mother Nate Merritt, develops a friendship with a gay man whilst on leave from the US marines.

Double Mints

Mitsuo Ichikawa receives a phone call from Mitsuo Ichikawa. Their names are pronounced the same, but spelled differently using kanji. They also graduated from the same high school. Back in their high school days, Mitsuo Ichikawa was like a subordinate to Mitsuo Ichikawa. Mitsuo Ichikawa is now a hoodlum and tells the other Mitsuo that he killed a woman. They become accomplices and build a new relationship.

Mapplethorpe

A look at the life of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe from his rise to fame in the 1970s to his untimely death in 1989.

Saving Face

A Chinese-American lesbian and her traditionalist mother are reluctant to go public with secret loves that clash against cultural expectations.

Loving Annabelle

Annabelle is the wise-beyond-her-years newcomer to an exclusive Catholic girls school. Having been expelled from her first two schools she's bound to stir some trouble. Sparks fly though when sexual chemistry appears between her and the Head of her dorm and English teacher, Simone Bradley. Annabelle pursues her relentlessly and until the end the older woman manages to avoid the law.

3-Day Weekend

Long-term couple Simon and Jason, along with daddy-ish Cooper and his boy du jour, escape to a mountain cabin for a three-day weekend away from their hectic city lives. Looking to spice up this long-standing tradition, they add a special twist to this years retreat - each of them must invite one attractive single friend to their mountain getaway.

Were the World Mine

If you had a love-potion, who would you make fall madly in love with you? Timothy, prone to escaping his dismal high school reality through dazzling musical daydreams, gets to answer that question in a very real way. After his eccentric teacher casts him as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, he stumbles upon a recipe hidden within the script to create the play's magical, purple love-pansy.

Summer Lovers

Michael Pappas and his girlfriend, Cathy, are enjoying the white sand beaches of a Greek island as well as the freewheeling nature of the locals. When Michael meets Lina, who is in Greece from Paris doing archaeological work, he is enamored with the beautiful foreigner. Cathy, unhappy about Lina getting close to Michael, confronts the woman -- only to be unexpectedly wooed by her charms as well.

The Laramie Project

"The Laramie Project" is set in and around Laramie, Wyoming, in the aftermath of the murder of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard. To create the stage version of "The Laramie Project," the eight-member New York-based Tectonic Theatre Project traveled to Laramie, Wyoming, recording hours of interviews with the town's citizens over a two-year period. The film adaptation dramatizes the troupe's visit, using the actual words from the transcripts to create a portrait of a town forced to confront itself.

Ciao

A man learns that his late friend had a secret online lover who is on the way from Italy.

Spokane

Two guys bail on a wedding, head to a strip club, and end up in a hotel room...

Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets

A portrait of the lives of a disparate group of patrons and employees at an American watering hole today.

WAR TIMES

An exploration of two souls inhabiting bodies from 1940's Hungary, and the beginning of the digital age.

Darker Than Midnight

Davide is different from the other teenagers. Something makes him look like a girl. Davide is fourteen when he runs away from home. His intuition leads him to choose Villa Bellini, a park in Catania, as a refuge. The park is a world in itself, a world of the marginalized, to which the rest of the city turns a blind eye. But one day the past catches up and Davide has to face the most difficult choice, this time alone.

Unfaithful Boys

Two Japanese boys go on a real-life Manga adventure when they discover what a single night in Shinjuku holds for unwary lovers. It’s the night of Gacchan’s birthday and boyfriend Takayuki is waiting at home to celebrate. But Gacchan has not only forgotten about his party, he’s been out playing around. Furious, Takayuki leaves, threatening not to return until he has indulged in some adultery of his own. Remade by the writer as 浮気なぼくら [Naughty Boys] (2002)

Seventeen

A teenager confronts their self worth after a failed relationship.

That Is All

While trying to navigate life as he enters his 30s, Ryan slips further into loneliness. A chance meeting with a friend's boyfriend, Sam, changes that and as they grow closer. Ryan must now come to terms with who he is, and what that means for him.

The Passion of Remembrance

Co-directed by Blackwood and Julien, the first full-length feature film by Sankofa Film and Video offers a radical and necessary interrogation into what constitutes 'post-colonial' identity at a time of political and social restlessness in Britain. Set within an isolated desert landscape contrasted with recognizable scenes of the intensity of family life, this vanguard work demonstrates the richness and variety of the black experience; it is a poetic and hard-hitting commentary on the complexities of race, gender and sexuality.

Easy Living

Sherry Graham, a self-destructive makeup saleswoman, hopes a new man and business venture will provide her a fresh start. After her plans are foiled, she takes control of her life in a dramatic turn of events.

Deceitful Appearances

The sexual misunderstandings caused by the real identity of a rich woman serve Hermosillo to satirize the moral and social hypocrisy of the provincial that every Mexican carries inside.

Get Real

Sensitive rural town model student Steven Carter hides his gay feelings, except with his neighbor and best friend Linda. Suddenly his desperate search for partners leads to a blind date with golden boy John Dixon, bound for an Oxbridge career.

The Deep End

With her husband Jack perpetually away at work, Margaret Hall raises her children virtually alone. Her teenage son is testing the waters of the adult world, and early one morning she wakes to find the dead body of his gay lover on the beach of their rural lakeside home. What would you do? What is rational and what do you do to protect your child? How far do you go and when do you stop?

The New Twenty

Five best friends in their late 20's discover new truths about themselves and the friendships they thought would last forever.

Remotely Killed: Behind the Scenes of Murder

This is the 58 minutes Hulu version which contains spoiler/reveals throughout the special.

Violetas

Katya is a young drummer who is part of an all-female punk rock band in Mexico City. Through music, she manages to free herself from the monotonous life with her boyfriend Daniel. As her first concert approaches, Katya struggles with her feelings for Daniel and her friend Carolina, with whom she has a special connection.

Temporal Fate

A time traveling trans woman turns back time to save the woman she spent the night with from death.

Memoirs of a Strangler of Blondes

First film by Julio Bressane shot in exile, "Memoirs" is a film about a man who repeatedly kills the same type of woman in same places, the same way. Filmed on the streets of London.

Something Must Break

A gritty story taking place in Stockholm, about the passionate love between the self-abusive Sebastian who wants to be a woman, and the easy-going Andreas who is certainly not gay.

Boys

Two teen track stars discover first love as they train for the biggest relay race of their young lives.

Fire

In a barren, arranged marriage to an amateur swami who seeks enlightenment through celibacy, Radha's life takes an irresistible turn when her beautiful young sister-in-law seeks to free herself from the confines of her own loveless marriage.

Bruno Reidal: Confession of a Murderer

Raulhac, Cantal, France, September 1, 1905. In the forest surrounding his hometown, the young seminarian Bruno Reidal murders a child and then surrenders himself to the authorities.

Mala Noche

Walt is a lonely convenience store clerk who has fallen in love with a Mexican migrant worker named Johnny. Though Walt has little in common with the object of his affections — including a shared language — his desire to possess Johnny prompts a sexual awakening that results in taboo trysts and a tangled love triangle.

Love Is Strange

After 39 years together, Ben and George finally tie the knot, but George loses his job as a result, and the newlyweds must sell their New York apartment and live apart, relying on friends and family to make ends meet.

Male Shorts: International V1

The first volume of an international collection of LGBTQ short films focusing on men. The 5 short films are: Just Past Noon on a Tuesday (2018); The Mousetrap [La tapette] (2016); The Storm [La tempête] (2017); P.D (2014); Neptune [Netuno] (2017).

Lingua Franca

Olivia, an undocumented Filipina immigrant paranoid about deportation, works as a caregiver to a Russian-Jewish grandmother in New York. When the man she’s secretly paying for a green card marriage backs out, she becomes involved with a slaughterhouse worker who is unaware that she’s a trans woman.

It's All True - A Visual Album

A visual album. A story of falling apart and putting yourself back together again as the world does the same. It is a story about personal death and rebirth, mental health, dealing with the tragedies of the world, queer love and finding community while featuring two of the most important places to the artist, MALINDA- Brooklyn and the west coast of Ireland.

Through a Boy's Eyes

When a boy becomes a young man, the way he sees the world can change not just his perceptions of those around him, but how others see him. As burgeoning desires come to the surface, there is the choice of either embracing and acting upon them, or burying them. Includes: On the Roof [En la azotea] (2015); The Son [El hijo] (2012); Inside [Dentro] (2013); Tomboy [Même pas mort] (2007); Paradigma (2016).

Too Rough

After a night of intoxication in Glasgow, a hungover and hysterical Nick wakes up next to his boyfriend Charlie and must conceal him from his own homophobic and dysfunctional family.

The Skeleton Twins

Estranged twins Maggie and Milo coincidentally cheat death on the same day, prompting them to reunite and confront the reasons their lives went so wrong. As the twins' reunion reinvigorates them, they realize the key to fixing their lives may just lie in repairing their relationship.

52 Tuesdays

Sixteen-year-old Billie’s reluctant path to independence is accelerated when her mother reveals plans for gender transition, and their time together becomes limited to Tuesdays. This emotionally charged story of desire, responsibility, and transformation was filmed over the course of a year—once a week, every week, only on Tuesdays.

The French Boys 3

Through the unlikely mediums of dance, graffiti, and elementary school dress-up, these French boys young and old show that whether it's about coming out or getting the guy - you had better do it in style. The short films are: Fairyocious [Féeroce] (2019); The Graffiti [Le graffiti] (2019); Eva (2016); A New Breath [Second souffle] (2021); Masculine (2018); The Tightrope Walkers [Les équilibristes] (2017).

The Sword and the Balance

Three young men are suspected of kidnapping and murdering a little boy. Most likely, two of them are really involved, but one is not. All of their pasts are questionable, riddled with violence and controversy. Neither the police nor the court can decide how to solve that puzzle.

Les Biches

A bored bisexual millionaire picks up a young destitute street artist and whisks her away to her villa in Saint Tropez. They meet a dashing local architect and both fall for him, setting in motion a ménage à trois of deception and betrayal.

Velvet Goldmine

Almost a decade since larger-than-life glam-rock enigma Brian Slade disappeared from public eye, an investigative journalist is on assignment to uncover the truth behind his former idol.

Nowhere

In Los Angeles, a colorful assortment of bohemians try to make sense of their intersecting lives. The moody Dark Smith, his bisexual girlfriend, her lesbian lover and their shy gay friend plan on attending the wildest party of the year. But they'll only make it if they can survive the drug trips, suicides, trysts, mutilations and alien abductions that occur as one surreal day unfolds.

Trick

Gabriel is a young, aspiring musical composer whose life seems stuck in the First Act. When his new musical number gets a critical reception, a theatre colleague, Perry, tells Gabriel that he needs to get a life before he can write about one – so he heads straight for his local gay bar.

Rent

This rock opera tells the story of one year in the life of a group of bohemians struggling in late 1980s East Village, New York, USA. The film centers around Mark and Roger, two roommates. While a tragedy has made Roger numb to new experiences, Mark begins capturing their world through his attempts to make a personal movie. In the year that follows, they and their friends deal with love, loss, and working together.

The Male Gaze: First Kiss

The Male Gaze is a new series of releases from New Queer Visions that showcases short LGBTQ films from across the world. The first instalment, First Kiss, brings together five shorts that are based around men experiencing romantic and/or sexual interaction with other men for the first time. It takes in films from Sweden, Indonesia, USA, Australia and France giving a rounded look at how similar experiences are depicted across the world. The films are: Naked [Naken] (2013); Pria (2017); Walk With Me (2018), One Night Only (2018); Michel's Mouse [Tapette] (2016).

Steam Room Stories: The Movie

Failing cosmetics magnate Sally Fay will stop at nothing to possess the waters of the Steam Room to help lift her sagging empire. What she doesn’t count on is the Steam Room Guys banding together to thwart her evil plans.

Relax With Ease

A three part meditation.

Drive Me Home

Antonio and Agostino grew up together in a small town in Sicily; they dreamt of living a different life, somewhere else. Now thirty-year-olds, they both live abroad but they lost touch years ago. When Antonio discovers that the house he grew up in, which had been empty for a long time, is about to be sold at auction, he decides to leave and reconnects with his childhood friend. But their lives have changed a lot. Old conflicts and new revelations bring them through Europe on a truck journey.

Punks

The life and times of a group of twentysomething black gay men living in West Hollywood.

Walk on Water

Eyal, an Israeli Mossad agent, is given the mission to track down and kill the very old Alfred Himmelman, an ex-Nazi officer, who might still be alive. Pretending to be a tourist guide, he befriends his grandson Axel, in Israel to visit his sister Pia. The two men set out on a tour of the country, during which Axel challenges Eyal's values.

Billy Elliot

County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.

All About My Mother

Following the tragic death of her teenage son, Manuela travels from Madrid to Barcelona in an attempt to contact the long-estranged father the boy never knew. She reunites with an old friend, an outspoken transgender sex worker, and befriends a troubled actress and a pregnant, HIV-positive nun.

Bad Education

Two children, Ignacio and Enrique, know love, the movies and fear in a religious school at the beginning of the 1960s. Father Manolo, director of the school and its professor of literature, is witness to and part of these discoveries. The three are followed through the next few decades, their reunion marking life and death.

Brokeback Mountain

In 1960s Wyoming, two men develop a strong emotional and sexual relationship that endures as a lifelong connection complicating their lives as they get married and start families of their own.

The Wounded Man

Henri is a lonely, isolated young man who lets no one get close to him. He meets a street hustler and comes out of his shell, going 180 degrees into gay obsession. Though he has yet to physically approach the object of his affection, Henri builds up so much unrequited lust that it explodes with horrible results.

Chasing Amy

Holden and Banky are comic book artists. Everything is going good for them until they meet Alyssa, also a comic book artist. Holden falls for her, but his hopes are crushed when he finds out she's a lesbian.

Boys On Film 15: Time & Tied

Embark on a magical journey through time with Boys On Film 15: Time & Tied — featuring a brand new selection of sensational gay British short films that showcase some of the UK's best emerging talent. This compilation features nine complete films: Lloyd Eyre-Morgan's "Closets" starring Tommy Knight and Ceallach Spellman; Brian Fairbairn & Karl Eccleston's "Putting On The Dish" starring Steve Wickenden and Neil Chinneck; Mitchell Marion's "G O'Clock" starring Marc Rovira Cenar and Phillip Weddell; Charlie Parham's "Nightstand" starring Nicholas Gleaves and Amrou Al-Kadhi; Simon Anderson's "Morning Is Broken" starring Matthew Tennyson, Nigel Allen and Jack Hawkins; Tom Frederic's "Sauna The Dead: A Fairy Tale" starring himself and Kumar Muniandy; Leon Lopez's "CrossRoad" starring Marc Rovira Cenar, Ashley Campbell, and Calum Ewan Cameron; Jake Graf's "Dawn" starring Nicole Gibson and Harry Rundle; and Kristen Bjorn's "Trouser Bar" starring Denholm Spurr, Scott Hunter, and Zac Renfree.

American Male

Ever felt pressure to “be a man?” American Male, a short film from MTV’s Look Different Creator Competition, is a gritty look at how gender norms make it hard for us to be who we really are. Head to privilege.lookdifferent.org for more on the issue and how to take action.

Oil On Canvas

María, a young student of Fine Arts, decides to spend a weekend with Julio, her partner, in the house of her parents' town. Once there, the young woman will have to face a reality already forgotten. The solid mentality of her family means that practically nothing has changed in the life of his brother Hugo and his father, Arturo