This Side of Heaven (2016)

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.

Baby Love

They were the perfect loving couple, well, almost. Emmanuel wanted a child but Philippe didn't. One day, however, Emmanuel decides to take the plunge, at the risk of losing Philippe. But how do you make a child when you are gay?

The Hours

The story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.

2:37

A contemporary, ensemble drama that tells the complex tale of six high school students whose lives are interwoven with situations that so many of today's youth are faced with. The story takes place during a normal school day. At precisely 2:37 a tragedy will occur, affecting the lives of a group of students and their teachers.

Funny Boy

Micky leaves his provincial and bourgeois background and leaves to live in Paris, where he performs as a transvestite singer in a cabaret.

Down in Paris

Richard, a 40-year-old filmmaker conquered by an unexplained anxiety attack, lets go of his current shoot and wanders through nocturnal Paris, in search of answers, solace and inspiration. During this sleepless night, at random encounters, sometimes warm, sometimes disturbing, crossing foreign figures, unknown bodies or familiar faces, Richard will face his fears and question his deep desires... until dawn.

HeBGB TV

A multidimensional cable box installs itself into a neighborhood and slowly, the world. Two siblings (Van and Willow Reiner) discover a mysterious package on their porch and are taken on a wild channel-surfing journey through a world of television mayhem. Welcomed by their new friend, The Purple Guy (Knucklehead), this brother and sister find themselves standing up to the box’s algorithm to protect their minds. DIY to its core, HeBGB TV is a spooky, sci-fi story that takes you through the horrors and laughs of cable television. This film is a cacophony of comical commercials, perverse puppets, and monstrous music with a naughty dose of 90s nostalgia. HeBGB TV is indie horror comedy at its queerest. Don’t touch that dial!

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.

The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin

The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin celebrates one of the world’s most beloved storytellers, following his evolution from a conservative son of the Old South into a gay rights pioneer whose novels inspired millions to reclaim their lives.

Philippino Story

Philip and Bastian are lovers. Philip has taken the responsibility to help his older brother’s family in the slums. However, when Bastian pursues painting and can no longer provide for Philip, Philip resorts to hustling in order to help his brother’s family. When Bastian catches Philip being picked up by a gay man in a car, he decides to keep everything inside. Can Philip and Bastian’s love prevail despite the odds?

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.

Aline

Alban lives in a ski resort with his mother. Each night, the teenager slips away to meet up with Julien – this boy who curiously has the same name as the hero of the novel Alban is devouring.

My Secret Agent Husband

To escape a forced political marriage, CEO's son Lucas fakes a gay marriage with undercover agent Wyatt, who is investigating his company. Their fake relationship turns real as they uncover secrets and face thrilling dangers.

Bend It Like Beckham

Jess Bhamra, the daughter of a strict Indian couple in London, is not permitted to play organized soccer, even though she is 18. When Jess is playing for fun one day, her impressive skills are seen by Jules Paxton, who then convinces Jess to play for her semi-pro team. Jess uses elaborate excuses to hide her matches from her family while also dealing with her romantic feelings for her coach, Joe.

My Own Private Idaho

In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare's "Henry IV," Mike Waters is a hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike's estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.

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.

Crash

After getting into a serious car accident, a TV director discovers an underground sub-culture of scarred, omnisexual car-crash victims, and he begins to use car accidents and the raw sexual energy they produce to try to rejuvenate his sex life with his wife.

Brother of Sleep

In the beginning of the 19th century, Johannes Elias Alder is born in a small village in the Austrian mountains. While growing up he is considered strange by the other villagers and discovers his love of music, especially rebuilding and playing the organ at the village church. After experiencing an "acoustic wonder", his eye color changes and he can hear even the most subtle sounds.

Dog Day Afternoon

Based on the true story of would-be Brooklyn bank robbers John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile. Sonny and Sal attempt a bank heist which quickly turns sour and escalates into a hostage situation and stand-off with the police. As Sonny's motives for the robbery are slowly revealed and things become more complicated, the heist turns into a media circus.

Military Dog

New to BDSM, military officer Lee Jun Zhong meets DT, master of human dogs. One late night, Lee calls DT. Given a task to prove his loyalty to the master, will Lee be able to overcome his doubts and fear?

Buddies

David, a naive graduate student, has volunteered to work as a 'buddy' for people dying of AIDS. Assigned to the intensely political Robert, a lifelong activist whose friends and family have abandoned him following his diagnosis, the two men, each with notably different world views, soon discover common bonds, as David's inner activist awakens and Robert's need for emotional release is fulfilled.

Beyond the Walls

This 1985 Spanish film reveals one of the many terrible aspects of 16th century Spain, still plagued by the radical Christian Inquisition, one of a plethora of difficulties Spaniards faced at the time. Spanish super star Carmen Maura plays a nun who agrees to a selfless scam, a fake stigmata, only to avoid separation from her lover, another nun. It's a serious and passionate work, highlighting the theme of outspoken women-against-repression, seen in other good gay and lesbian films. This is not a lesbian "Nun sense" or another "Dark Habits" (by Almodovar, which also starred Carmen Maura, and also set in a Spanish convent, with some lesbian nuns). Perhaps, best of all, 'Extramuros' is realistic and frank. It isn't shy about its characters' sexuality. Their sexuality, and the film as a whole are genuine.

Gie

Indonesian activist Soe Hok Gie experiences a political awakening during the tumultuous regimes of Soeharto and Soekarno.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Suffering from acute kidney failure, Boonmee has chosen to spend his final days surrounded by his loved ones in the countryside. Surprisingly, the ghost of his deceased wife appears to care for him, and his long lost son returns home in a non-human form. Contemplating the reasons for his illness, Boonmee treks through the jungle with his family to a mysterious hilltop cave—the birthplace of his first life.

Bedspacer

Janice's steamy obsession to imitate Lexi propels them to campus stardom. But dark secrets blur the lines between authenticity and seductive deception.

Misconceptions

The story centers on a religiously conservative, married southern woman who receives a message from God instructing her to act as a surrogate mother and carry a child for two married gay men who live in Boston - a Jewish doctor and and African-American dance choreographer. All Hell breaks loose when the African American man comes to her home down south to micro-manage her pregnancy, and he won't leave.

And Then Came Lola

A talented, but distracted photographer, Lola, on the verge of success in both love and work, could lose it all if she doesn't make it to a crucial meeting on time. But, as usual, Lola is late. With her job and girlfriend on the line, she has three chances to make it right. In a desperate race through the streets and back rooms of San Francisco, time grows short-will Lola make it? Will she come at all? With a pop sensibility that mixes live action, animation and still photography, And Then Came Lola explores love's age old question in a fresh new way, "If you try, try again, will you finally get it right?" (Written by M. Siler and E. Seidler)

Tell It to the Bees

Dr. Jean Markham returns to the town she left as a teenager to take over her late father's medical practice. When a school-yard scuffle lands Charlie in her surgery, she invites him to visit the hives in her garden and tell his secrets to the bees, as she once did. The new friendship between the boy and the bee keeper brings his mother Lydia into Jean's world.

Carmilla

Isolated from the outside world, fifteen-year-old Lara lives in seclusion on a vast country estate with her father and strict governess Miss Fontaine. Late one evening, a mysterious carriage crash brings a young girl into their home to recuperate. Lara immediately becomes enchanted by this strange visitor who arouses her curiosity and awakens her burgeoning desires.

Knife+Heart

In the summer of 1979, gay porn producer Anne sets out to film her most ambitious film yet, but her actors are picked off, one by one, by a mysterious killer.

Westler

Felix from West-Berlin falls in love with Thomas in East-Berlin. At first they keep their relationship going by regular visits from Felix, but the curfew forces him to return every evening. When the East-German authorities become suspicious, Thomas decides to try and flee to the West.

Drowsiness

The emotional inertia and chaos affecting a narcoleptic woman, a fatally ill writer and a gay doctor, and their attempts to escape from their dead-end situations.

Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!

Kenneth Williams was the star of the Carry Ons and Round the Horne. Despite his fame, he led a life full of mental torture as he tried to overcome his homosexuality in 1950s Britain. This film follows his life and eventual death based on the many diaries he kept

Nobody's Perfect

Guerrino, a prematurely widowed businessman, falls in love with Chantal, a former paratrooper in the German army who changed sex a few years earlier.

Howl

It's San Francisco in 1957, and an American masterpiece is put on trial. Howl, the film, recounts this dark moment using three interwoven threads: the tumultuous life events that led a young Allen Ginsberg to find his true voice as an artist, society's reaction (the obscenity trial), and mind-expanding animation that echoes the startling originality of the poem itself. All three coalesce in a genre-bending hybrid that brilliantly captures a pivotal moment-the birth of a counterculture.

Mai

When a struggling single mother falls for a wealthy heartbreaker, their risky romance could just turn their lives around — or tear their worlds apart.

Disclosure

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.

I Am Michael

The controversial true story of a gay activist who rejects his homosexuality and becomes a Christian pastor.

Trio

When a polyamorous trio seems to be living its peaceful everyday life, the arrival of a girl is ready to upset their balance and change their destinies forever.

Who Am I Now?

New friends Erin and Alex discover a mutual attraction that neither of them have ever felt before. While Alex tries to navigate her feelings, Erin refuses to acknowledge that she might be gay and heads down a path of self-destruction. Faced with Erin's denial, Alex must decide whether to follow her own path, or fight for the first person she's ever loved.

Pre-Drink

Alexe is a young trans woman, and Carl a gay man. Best friends since forever, an evening spent together destabilizes Alexe, when both decide to have sex together for the first time.

Eyes Wide Open

A middle-aged Orthodox Jew, Aaron, living and working in Jerusalem with his wife and children, meets a homeless 19-year-old student. Aaron offers to give Ezri work as his assistant at his family's butcher shop. The two men grow close and their attraction becomes sexual. Aaron must now confront his own sexuality, his feelings for Ezri, and his obligations to his family and faith.

Sebastian

Alex is an Argentinian student in Toronto for just one week. They both know that the relationship ends when he catches his flight back home. But they’re falling for each other and it’s the kind of relationship that changes them, unlocks things hidden deep inside.

High Art

When Syd, a young editor at an influential art magazine, becomes involved with her neighbor, a drug-addicted lesbian photographer, both seek to exploit each other for their respective careers while slowly falling in love with each other.

Tiger Orange

In the small Central California town where they grew up, two estranged gay brothers struggle to reconnect after the recent death of their father.

Egoist

A lonely magazine editor finds romance with his personal trainer until a confession changes everything. Based on the novel by Makoto Takayama.

No Goodbyes

Love in a concentration camp. A young Jewish gay man, Otto, is protected by a "kapo" (a fellow prisoner) and an SS guard who unexpectedly ends up saving his life.

Hold Me

Yeon Ho and Jae Min's high school graduation day. Yeon Ho runs holding Jae Min's hand. Suddenly, Yeon Ho apologizes to Jae Min for no reason, but Jae Min replies to Yeon Ho with a confession. Can Yeon Ho answer Jae Min's courage?

Saltwater

Will leaves the Navy after many years, soon reunites old friends and begins to start his new civilian life. His friend Rich tries to set him up with ruggedly handsome Josh. While there is immense chemistry between the two, timing and certain ideals never seem to align. When a shocking tragedy happens, the two are paired up to pick up the pieces and sort through the after effects.

In the Family

The neurotic Fikret and tavern singer Solmaz, whose 21 year long relationships end on the same day, meet through a funny coincidence. When Solmaz's daughter Zeynep decides to marry her lover from Adana, the ever-fearful Fikret ends up having to play the role of his life. Intended at first to be kept in the family, the wedding becomes a much bigger event upon the insistence of the groom's relatives. Can our heroes come to terms with the traditional Adana family who carry guns and own a kebab restaurant chain, and see the wedding through without mishaps?

Death in Buenos Aires

In the 1980s, after a businessman is murdered at his home, an experienced police inspector and his rookie partner must delve into the gay scene of the city to catch the killer.

Burn the Bridges

Eugenia is a former pop singer who is bedridden and dying of cancer. She is cared for by her daughter, Helena, who dreams of traveling the world and wishes she could be a glamorous pop star like her mother was. Helena’s younger brother Sebastian's dreams are simple and he merely wants to move to the beach. Helena is smart and pretty but she has no friends, male or female and is totally devoted to her mother's care and is also on the verge of initiating an incestuous relationship with Sebastian. Sebastian however, is falling in love with a boy at school named Juan who is the school roughneck and the son of a single father who owns a little bar. Juan is the nemesis of the school preppy named Ismael who comes from such a wealthy home that he has his own chauffeur and bodyguards. Ismael's ping-pong obsessed girlfriend Aurora rents a room at Helena and Sebastian's house where Ismael discovers he is also attracted to Sebastian.

Longtime Companion

During the summer of 1981, a group of friends in New York are completely unprepared for the onslaught of AIDS. What starts as a rumor about a mysterious "gay cancer" soon turns into a major crisis as, one by one, some of the friends begin to fall ill, leaving the others to panic about who will be next. As death takes its toll, the lives of these friends are forever redefined by an unconditional display of love, hope and courage.

The War Boys

David, George, and Greg, best friends since high school, are “The War Boys”. They used to perch on the US-Mexican border, waiting to spot illegal immigrants who were trying to run into the United States. Sometimes, without a thought for the immigrants, the boys chased them across the wasteland and back across the border – just for fun. It was just one of those games boys played to make themselves feel big. But high school’s over now. David is unexpectedly home from his freshman year of college and the War Boys have been reunited.

A Place of Our Own

After sudden eviction by their prejudiced landlord, transwomen Laila and Roshni must put their wits together to find a home and reclaim their place in society.

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 Love Her

The young street musician girl must to conquer her own fears and ghosts from the past of social influences from Ukraine, where she grown up, in order to admit her feelings to other deaf-mute girl and make a right decision till it's too late.

Daydream Obsession 2: Infidelities

In this sequel to the ever-so-campy, wanna-be gay soft porn, Daydream Obsession, the naked-body-obsessed Clayton (Joseph Dain), whose previous demented daydreams turned to kidnapping and bondage nearly destroyed his friendship in the last film with his straight roommate Brian, now turns his fixated attentions upon his boyfriend Luke, who he suspects is cheating on him. Will the relationship survive Clayton's delusional fantasies? Written by Joe Fowler

Camouflage

The film Camouflage explores the motivation behind a school shooting. The film is a social movement piece geared towards opening people's eyes to the many issues surrounding the recent onslaught of gun violence including mental health, gay and lesbian equality, bullying, and gun control.

Let It Snow

In a small town on Christmas Eve, a snowstorm brings together a group of young people. They soon find their friendships and love lives colliding, and come Christmas morning, nothing will be the same.

Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine

An intimate portrait of Matthew Shepard, the gay young man murdered in one of the most notorious hate crimes in U.S. history. Framed through a personal lens, it's the story of loss, love, and courage in the face of unspeakable tragedy.

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.

I Carry You with Me

An epic love story spanning decades is sparked by a chance encounter between two men in provincial Mexico. Based on a true story, ambition and societal pressure propel an aspiring chef to leave his soulmate and make the treacherous journey to New York, where life will never be the same.

The Conrad Boys

After his mother dies, 19-year-old Charlie Conrad skips college to raise his 9-year-old brother, Ben, in this moving drama. But the heavy responsibility soon causes Charlie to yearn for a normal life. Things start to look up when he embarks on a passionate romance with a free-spirited drifter named Jordan -- until the return of Charlie's estranged father changes everything.

Neverland

Damion Dietz's NEVERLAND is a dark, modernized, and highly original retelling of the childhood classic PETER PAN. In this version, Peter (Rick Sparks) is a juvenile delinquent, Tinkerbell (Kari... Damion Dietz's NEVERLAND is a dark, modernized, and highly original retelling of the childhood classic PETER PAN. Peter takes Wendy to Neverland — a burnt-out suburban amusement park populated by drag queens, drug addicts, prostitutes and such — the ultimate fantasy-adventure becomes a fascinating nightmare in this bold retelling of the Peter Pan story.

Merry & Gay

Broadway star Becca comes home for the holidays to see her family and find out if there is still a spark with her high school sweetheart Sam. Sam is hesitant to let Becca in, but their moms have other plans.

Ganymede

After a small-town wrestling star develops a crush on an openly gay classmate, he is stalked by a grotesque creature that invades his thoughts as he navigates his feelings and struggles to live up to his legacy-obsessed family.

Two and One

A gay couple realizes they aren't sexually compatible, so they look for a third man. But when betrayal and jealousy sneak in, their relationship shatters into pieces.

Clapham Junction

Set in the Clapham district of south London, England, the film is inspired by true events. The paths of several men intersect during a dramatic thirty-six hours in which their lives are changed forever.

You Are Not Alone

Young teenager Bo is too sensitive for the hothouse atmosphere of a boarding school run by a cold, unfeeling would-be man of the cloth. Lonely and scared, he finds a soulmate in the headmaster's son Kim with whom he forms a bond of friendship... that slowly grows into something more.

Miao Miao

18-year-old Ai loves baking, even if she's not that good at it. She dreams of some day baking the perfect pastry, until she meets Miao Miao, a shy exchange student from Japan, who happens to be sort of a pastry expert.

Spooky Sunday

Trans couple Abby and Aidan are moving into their first apartment. They both struggle with dysphoria in different ways and jokingly wish they could swap bodies to make things easier. When this wish is realized through supernatural intervention, they are given the option to decide whether they'd like to stay swapped, or return to their original bodies.

Kaathal - The Core

Mathew Devassy, a retired bank manager decides to enter local panchayat elections. Unexpectedly, his wife Omana, shocks everyone by filing for divorce, claiming that Mathew is gay.

Like a Brother

Sebastien is a small town boy who moves to Paris and begins to explore the gay night life there. When a friend from back home calls to announce he's coming to Paris, Sebastien confronts some unrequited feelings.

Hello Again

Ten lost souls slip in and out of one another's arms in a daisy-chained musical exploration of love's bittersweet embrace. A film adaptation of Michael John LaChiusa's celebrated musical, originally based on Arthur Schnitzler's play, La Ronde.