Rustin (2023)

Monica

After years of estrangement, a trans woman returns home to help care for her dying mother.

The ABCs of Book Banning

In recent years, more than 2,500 books have been removed from school districts around the US, labeled as banned, restricted, or challenged, and made unavailable to millions of students. By no accident, the themes targeted are the usual scapegoats of the American Right—LGBTQ+ issues, Black History, and women’s empowerment—impeding the power of future generations to develop their own thoughts and opinions on critical social issues. By weaving together a lyrical montage of young readers and authors, THE ABCs OF BOOK BANNING reveals the voices of the impacted parties, and inspires hope for the future through the profound insights of inquisitive youthful minds.

Nona

A grandmother is caught between her two favorite things when her granddaughter is unexpectedly dropped off during the day she was planning to spend watching her favorite TV show.

King of the Children

An unschooled young man, one of the countless victims of Mao's Cultural Revolution, is laboring in the countryside when he is assigned to teach in a nearby school. Gradually, he abandons the Maoist textbook and encourages the barely literate kids to write about their own lives and feelings.

Folklore

by Charles Yeager

Night of Fear

A young girl who has just spent an afternoon playing tennis and making love with a man, gets accidentally run off the road by a truck. Ending up on a dead-end dirt road, her car gets stuck in a ditch, where she starts getting terrorized by a drooling, gibbering psycho, who also has a colony of rats.

Baby Brother

Joe Cobb is a wealthy child who longs for a baby brother. His nursemaid takes him to the other side where he meets some kids his age (the rest of Our Gang) where Joe offers three dollars for a baby. Farina finds a fellow African-American neighbor woman who lets him mind her infant which he then paints white and sells to Joe. The rest of the gang has set an assembly-line system that washes, dries, rocks, and feeds male and female babies.

Darkling

In NATO-occupied Kosovo, a little girl writes an essay for the United Nations about her father who has gone missing. Meanwhile, the girl's grandfather becomes increasingly paranoid of the unseen threats that lurk in the dark.

Tig

An intimate documentary that follows Tig Notaro, a Los Angeles based comedian, who just days after being diagnosed with invasive stage II breast cancer changed the course of her career with a poignant stand-up set that became legendary overnight. It explores Tig's extraordinary journey as her career ignites and as her life unfolds in grand and unexpected ways, all the while continuing to battle a life-threatening illness and falling in love.

What Happens Later

Two ex-lovers get snowed in at a regional airport overnight. Indefinitely delayed, Willa, a magical thinker, and Bill, a catastrophic one, find themselves just as attracted to and annoyed by one another as they did decades earlier. But as they unpack the riddle of their mutual past and compare their lives to the dreams they once shared, they begin to wonder if their reunion is mere coincidence, or something more enchanted.

American Symphony

Musician Jon Batiste attempts to compose a symphony as his wife, writer Suleika Jaouad, undergoes cancer treatment.

The Beaches of Agnès

Filmmaking icon Agnès Varda, the award-winning director regarded by many as the grandmother of the French new wave, turns the camera on herself with this unique autobiographical documentary. Composed of film excerpts and elaborate dramatic re-creations, Varda's self-portrait recounts the highs and lows of her professional career, the many friendships that affected her life and her longtime marriage to cinematic giant Jacques Demy.

Anything's Possible

Anything’s Possible is a delightfully modern Gen Z coming-of-age story that follows Kelsa, a confident high school girl who is trans, as she navigates through senior year. When her classmate Khal gets a crush on her, he musters up the courage to ask her out, despite the drama he knows it could cause. What transpires is a romance that showcases the joy, tenderness, and pain of young love.

NYAD

Athlete Diana Nyad sets out at 60 to achieve a nearly impossible lifelong dream: to swim from Cuba to Florida across more than 100 miles of open ocean.

Per tutta la vita

Four married couples find out their marriage is invalid because it was officiated by a fraudulent priest and have to decide what to do next.

20,000 Species of Bees

Lucía is an eight-year-old girl, who sometimes struggles as the world tries to catch up with the fact that she is trans. As the summer holidays pass, she explores her femininity alongside the women of her family who at the same time reflect on their own femininity.

May December

Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under the pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.

Central Station

An emotional journey of a former school teacher, who writes letters for illiterate people, and a young boy, whose mother has just died, as they search for the father he never knew.

Big George Foreman

Fueled by an impoverished childhood, George Foreman channeled his anger into becoming an Olympic Gold medalist and World Heavyweight Champion, followed by a near-death experience that took him from the boxing ring to the pulpit. But when he sees his community struggling spiritually and financially, Foreman returns to the ring and makes history by reclaiming his title, becoming the oldest and most improbable World Heavyweight Boxing Champion ever.

Manhunter

FBI Agent Will Graham, who retired after catching Hannibal Lecter, returns to duty to engage in a risky cat-and-mouse game with Lecter to capture a new killer.

22 Bullets

A retired mobster goes on a revenge spree after being left for dead with 22 bullets in his body by his former childhood friend.

Maestro

A towering and fearless love story chronicling the lifelong relationship between Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. A love letter to life and art, Maestro at its core is an emotionally epic portrayal of family and love.

The Holdovers

A curmudgeonly instructor at a New England prep school is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam.

Past Lives

After decades apart, childhood friends Nora and Hae Sung are reunited in New York for one fateful weekend as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life.

Footloose

When teenager Ren and his family move from big-city Chicago to a small town in the West, he's in for a real case of culture shock after discovering he's living in a place where music and dancing are illegal.

Io Capitano

Longing for a brighter future, two Senegalese teenagers embark on a journey from West Africa to Italy. However, between their dreams and reality lies a labyrinth of checkpoints, the Sahara Desert, and the vast waters of the Mediterranean.

Saltburn

Struggling to find his place at Oxford University, student Oliver Quick finds himself drawn into the world of the charming and aristocratic Felix Catton, who invites him to Saltburn, his eccentric family's sprawling estate, for a summer never to be forgotten.

Anatomy of a Fall

A woman is suspected of her husband's murder, and their blind son faces a moral dilemma as the sole witness.

The Last of the Mohicans

In war-torn colonial America, in the midst of a bloody battle between British, the French and Native American allies, the aristocratic daughter of a British Colonel and her party are captured by a group of Huron warriors. Fortunately, a group of three Mohican trappers comes to their rescue.

American Fiction

A novelist fed up with the establishment profiting from "Black" entertainment uses a pen name to write a book that propels him into the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain.

Lawrence of Arabia

The story of British officer T.E. Lawrence's mission to aid the Arab tribes in their revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Lawrence becomes a flamboyant, messianic figure in the cause of Arab unity but his psychological instability threatens to undermine his achievements.

The Happening

When a deadly airborne virus threatens to wipe out the northeastern United States, teacher Elliot Moore and his wife Alma flee from contaminated cities into the countryside in a fight to discover the truth. Is it terrorism, the accidental release of some toxic military bio weapon -- or something even more sinister?

Brazil

Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.

Nimona

A knight framed for a tragic crime teams with a scrappy, shape-shifting teen to prove his innocence.

Thanksgiving

After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts - the birthplace of the holiday. Picking off residents one by one, what begins as random revenge killings are soon revealed to be part of a larger, sinister holiday plan.

Nightmare Alley

An ambitious carnival man with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychologist who is even more dangerous than he is.

Perfect Days

Hirayama is content with his life as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. Outside of his structured routine, he cherishes music on cassette tapes, books, and taking photos of trees. Through unexpected encounters, he reflects on finding beauty in the world.

The Zone of Interest

The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.

Easy A

Olive, an average high school student, sees her below-the-radar existence turn around overnight once she decides to use the school's gossip grapevine to advance her social standing. Now her classmates are turning against her and the school board is becoming concerned, including her favorite teacher and the distracted guidance counselor. With the support of her hilariously idiosyncratic parents and a little help from a long-time crush, Olive attempts to take on her notorious new identity and crush the rumor mill once and for all.

Road House

Ex-UFC fighter Dalton takes a job as a bouncer at a Florida Keys roadhouse, only to discover that this paradise is not all it seems.

Transamerica

A transgender woman takes an unexpected journey when she learns that she had a son, now a teenage runaway hustling on the streets of New York.

Basquiat

The brief life of Jean Michel Basquiat, a world renowned New York street artist struggling with fame, drugs and his identity.

Catch Me If You Can

A true story about Frank Abagnale Jr. who, before his 19th birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor. An FBI agent makes it his mission to put him behind bars. But Frank not only eludes capture, he revels in the pursuit.

Requiem for a Dream

The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.

Freak Show

The story of teenager Billy Bloom who, despite attending an ultra conservative high school, makes the decision to run for homecoming queen.

Michael Collins

Michael Collins plays a crucial role in the establishment of the Irish Free State in the 1920s, but becomes vilified by those hoping to create a completely independent Irish republic.

Au Revoir les Enfants

Au revoir les enfants tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss concerning two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the precocious youths enjoy true camaraderie—until a secret is revealed. Based on events from writer-director Malle’s own childhood, the film is a subtle, precisely observed tale of courage, cowardice, and tragic awakening.

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.

Viva Zapata!

The story of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who led a rebellion against the corrupt, oppressive dictatorship of president Porfirio Díaz in the early 20th century.

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.

A Chorus Line

A group of dancers congregate on the stage of a Broadway theatre to audition for a new musical production directed by Zach. After the initial eliminations, seventeen hopefuls remain, among them Cassie, who once had a tempestuous romantic relationship with Zach. She is desperate enough for work to humble herself and audition for him; whether he's willing to let professionalism overcome his personal feelings about their past remains to be seen.

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.

We Shall Overcome

A drama about a boy who's inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and challenges repressive school authority in 1969 Denmark.

Do You Want to Die in Indio?

When a budding romance falls apart, and a scholarship to USC gets yanked out from under him, 17-year-old Salvi hits the mean streets of Palm Springs and gets swept up into an incendiary weekend of partying, gun violence and sexual ambiguity.

The Third One

After meeting in a chat room, Fede (22) arrives at a downtown building to have an intimate encounter with a gay couple older than him. As the night unfolds, Fede has an intense and telling experience. The next morning finds him different, as if suddenly he had found a new possible way to love.

Man on the Moon

The story of the life and career of eccentric avant-garde comedian, Andy Kaufman.

Malcolm X

A tribute to the controversial black activist and leader of the struggle for black liberation. He hit bottom during his imprisonment in the '50s, he became a Black Muslim and then a leader in the Nation of Islam. His assassination in 1965 left a legacy of self-determination and racial pride.

The Sea Inside

Ramón Sampedro is a ship mechanic and part-time poet left a quadriplegic following a diving accident. Ramón fought for 30 years for the legal right to end his own life. He develops close relationships with his long-term lawyer Julia and his friend Rosa, who tries to convince him that his life is worth living. Despite his situation, Ramón manages to inspire those around him to live life to the fullest.

Everything Is Free

Ivan is a US painter residing in Colombia. His best friend, Christian, and younger brother, Cole, come to visit. Somewhere along the way, Ivan and Cole hit it off although Cole is not gay. Will older brother Christian be okay with that?

Alaska Is a Drag

Tough, but diva fabulous, Leo, an aspiring drag superstar, is stuck working in a fish cannery in Alaska. He and his twin sister are trapped in the monotony of fist fights and fish guts. Out of necessity, Leo learned to fight back, which catches the attention of the local boxing coach. When a new boy moves to town and wants to be his sparring partner, Leo has to face the real reason he's stuck in Alaska.

Chicago 10

Archival footage, animation and music are used to look back at the eight anti-war protesters who were put on trial following the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

He Went That Way

Set in 1964, a three-day journey along Route 66 begins when Bobby Falls, a 19-year-old serial killer, hitches a ride with Jim Goodwin, a celebrity animal handler travelling with his precious cargo: his TV chimpanzee, Spanky.

Close The Last Door

After being best man at his best friend's (Saitou Toshihisa) wedding, Nagai Atsushi realizes that he might have fallen for him. Nagai, drowning in his sorrows and hatred for the new bride then meets Honda Kenzou, another guest at the wedding. Honda takes care of Nagai when he was dead drunk and now Nagai can't stop thinking of both Honda and Saitou.

The Dreamlife of David L

“The Dreamlife of David L.“ is a fictional feature film that takes inspiration from a key point in the life of director David Lynch: the time he spent as a student in a fine arts college. Initially attracted to painting, David Lynch ends up choosing the medium of film to express his talent. Far from being an attempt at biography, this film is an imaginary vision where the action could take place today. Which encounters or events leave their mark on the young David L. during this year as a student? “The Dreamlife of David L.” is a dreamlike journey that leads the viewer through the meanderings of this art school. There’s no need to be familiar with the cinematographic works of Lynch to follow the young David L. step by step, going behind the scenes with him.

Darkroom

A very short film about a man leaving a night club, a street in dark, a guy offering his sexual services and his tears. The only demand. Intense, almost cruel, a precise portrait of refuges, loneliness, compromises and fall.

The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart

A 23-year-old Columbia University dropout seeks his identity during the sexual revolution.

Komitas

The film is dedicated to the Armenian monk and genius composer Komitas, and the 2 million victims on his people in Turkey in 1915. The final 20 years of Komitas life were spent in various mental hospitals. The destiny of Komitas? This is the magic beauty of Armenian culture and the abhorrent brutality of Armenian history. A cultural and artistic world that was slaughtered with a curved knife. A humanity that doggedly advances towards an apocalyptic catastrophe, that does not recognize its own original purpose, eradicates its own memory, its final roots.

Latin Blood – The Ballad of Ney Matogrosso

From a repressive childhood to artistic revolution, Ney Matogrosso transforms Brazil's stages — and himself — through music, creativity and inner fire.

Born for You

Alba has Down's Syndrome and was left in the hospital when she was born. Thirty families rejected her before the court decided to entrust her to Luca: a Catholic — and gay — single man.

Nico, 1988

Approaching age 50, singer/songwriter Nico leads a solitary existence, far from her days as a Warhol superstar and celebrated vocalist for the Velvet Underground in the 1960s. Her life and career on the fringes, Nico's new manager convinces her to hit the road again and tour in Europe to promote her latest album. She longs to rebuild a relationship with her son, whose custody she lost long ago.

Broken Gardenias

Jenni, an orphaned semi-savant, and a street hustler named Sam, steal a car and head to Los Angeles to find Jenni's father whom she hasn't seen or heard from since she was six years old.

My Generation

The vivid and inspiring story of British film icon Michael Caine's personal journey through 1960s swinging London.

Vincere

The story of the descent into madness of Mussolini's secret first wife, Ida Dasler, who was seduced by his passion and vigor but blind to the fascist dictator's many flaws.

What the Eyes Can't See

Four Spanish-language shorts about the importance and complexity of people's perception from award winning directors. Stories of identity, misconceptions, regrets, dreams and love are told in this diverse collection. Includes: Tenants [Inquilinos] (2018); My Brother [Mi hermano] (2015); Guillermo on the Roof [Guillermo en el tejado] (2018); You Are Not a Woman [Usted no es mujer] (2018).

All Yours

A penniless Argentine male escort meets a solitary, lonely Belgian baker who wants to help him leave the world of prostitution, explores intimate gay relationship.

The White Angel

In Victorian England, Florence Nightingale's heroic measures slowly change the attitude towards nurses when it was considered a disreputable profession.

Lord of the Ants

Based on true events of the late 60s in Italy, poet, playwright and myrmecologist Aldo Braibanti is prosecuted and sentenced to prison for the love he shares with his barely-of-age pupil and friend, Ettore. Amidst a chorus of voices of accusers, supporters and a largely hypocritical public, a single committed journalist takes on the task of piecing together the truth, between secrecy and desire, facing suspicion and censorship in the process.

Shampoo

A Beverly Hills hairdresser runs around town on the eve of the 1968 presidential election trying to make heads or tails of his financial and romantic entanglements. His attempts to gather the money to open his own salon are continually side-tracked by the distractions presented by his many lovers.

The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler

Irena Sendler is a Catholic social worker who has sympathized with the Jews since her childhood, when her physician father died of typhus contracted while treating poor Jewish patients. When she initially proposes saving Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto, her idea is met with skepticism by fellow workers, her parish priest, and even her own mother Janina.

The Jolson Story

At the turn of the 20th century, young Asa Yoelson decides to go against the wishes of his cantor father and pursue a career in show business. Gradually working his way up through the vaudeville ranks, Asa — now calling himself Al Jolson — joins a blackface minstrel troupe and soon builds a reputation as a consummate performer. But as his career grows in size, so does his ego, resulting in battles in business as well as in his personal life.

Ghosts... of the Civil Dead

The inmates and guards of a modern, clean and efficient maximum security wing are slowly and increasingly brutalized until they erupt in violence.

Dreyfus

In 1894, French officer Alfred Dreyfus is wrongly convicted for the treasonous acts of another man, Major Esterhazy. When investigations begin into the dubious evidence used in the trial, an institutional coverup begins, aided by fears of army disgrace and anti-Semitic paranoia against Dreyfus. But a determined group, headed by prominent author Émile Zola, leads a mounting public call to reopen the Dreyfus case.

The Secret Diary of Sigmund Freud

Screwball account of the legendary psychologist's life leading up to his ground-breaking theories.

Murat Göğebakan: Kalbim Yaralı

Turkish singer Murat Göğebakan embarks on a successful musical career, until he receives a terminal cancer diagnosis.

Sea Sparkles

The night before he is set to leave Uruguay in search of a better future, Lucas, an ambitious yet doubtful young man meets Juan, a Venezuelan immigrant who challenges his views on life and pushes him to enjoy the present.

Kaadhal Enbadhu Podhu Udamai

Samyuktha, a passionate Kathak dancer, shares a deep bond with her mother, Lakshmi—a renowned motivational speaker and documentary filmmaker. Their progressive relationship is tested when Samyuktha reveals her love for another woman. While Lakshmi is initially thrilled, her excitement fades as she struggles to reconcile her traditional Indian values with modern ideas of love and sexuality. Through multiple perspectives, including that of Mary, who explores evolving notions of romance, the story delves into acceptance, identity, and the complexities of family dynamics.

Caught by Night

A communist journalist from Prague is sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp.

Truck Driver

In a boarding school, Raidel is witness to the abuse suffered by his schoolmate Randy.

I Can't Think Straight

Tala, a London-based Palestinian, is preparing for her elaborate Middle Eastern wedding when she meets Leyla, a young British Indian woman who is dating her best friend. Spirited Christian Tala and shy Muslim Leyla could not be more different from each other, but the attraction is immediate and goes deeper than friendship. But Tala is not ready to accept the implications of the choice her heart has made for her and escapes back to Jordan, while Leyla tries to move on with her new-found life, to the shock of her tradition-loving parents. As Tala's wedding day approaches, simmering tensions come to boiling point and the pressure mounts for Tala to be true to herself.

Jet Boy

A coming-of-age story of a reluctant 13-year-old hustler named Nathan who will do whatever it takes to feel loved.

Swingin'

When sixth-grader boy Qiu is bullied in school for having gay dads, his stepfather Howard, a flamboyant Jazz trumpet player, must confront his own nightmares of childhood bulling before he can provide his son a feeling of security.

The Death & Life of John F. Donovan

A decade after the death of an American TV star, a young actor reminisces about the written correspondence he once shared with the former, as well as the impact those letters had on both their lives.

Richard Jewell

Richard Jewell thinks quick, works fast, and saves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives after a domestic terrorist plants several pipe bombs and they explode during a concert, only to be falsely suspected of the crime by sloppy FBI work and sensational media coverage.

Neuromance

Nate is a twenty-three-year-old autistic gay man exploring the horrors of the dating world in Sydney. After his well-meaning best friends sign him up for Grindr, Will he find the man of his dreams, or will it end in tears?

A Walk on the Moon

The world of a young housewife is turned upside down when she has an affair with a free-spirited blouse salesman.

If These Walls Could Talk 2

The stories of three lesbian couples -- who live in the same house at different periods of time -- who are at a crossroads in their lives. In 1961, Edith loses her lover, Abby, to a stroke. Linda and Amy struggle with feminist issues in 1972. And, in 2000, Kal and Fran try to have a baby with the help of sperm donor.

Ghosts of Mississippi

A Mississippi district attorney and the widow of Medgar Evers struggle to bring a white supremacist to justice for the 1963 murder of the civil rights leader.

Another Country

In Moscow in 1983, an American journalist interviews Guy Bennett, who recalls his last year at public school, fifty years before, and how it contributed to him becoming a spy.

Defying Gravity

Popular frat guy Griff, the ultimate boy next boy, has a great big secret... Pete. Given an ultimatum by Pete, Griff goes the straight route until things get rough. Ultimately, defying reality is harder than he had ever imagined.

A Balloon's Landing

A frustrated Hong Kong writer, Tian-Yu, meets a Taipei street gangster, Xiang, and the two of them embark on a journey to find the Bay of Whales, a place that leads to paradise.

Driver

When her husband goes missing, a wife asked their driver to help her find him. Whaf happens next folliws an interesting plot involving sex, drama and thrills in this Thai erotic thriller.

Ultra Bleu

Ultra Bleu follows Jim Park for the first 24 hours after a violent break up with his ex-boyfriend and how a chance meeting with a stranger reveals deeper issues he must confront.

The Violation

Mickey Dougherty has a crush on Oscar, the son of the wealthy family next door. Oscar has a crush on Mickey's sister, Tina. Fearing a burglary, Oscar's mother asks the Dougherty family to house-sit while they're at their daughter's wedding. Linda makes it clear that she doesn't want the Doughertys venturing beyond the family room, but once she's gone, Mickey invades Oscar's bedroom. Mickey builds a totem of Oscar out of Oscar's pants and shirts, seating the totem on the toilet and then touching it erotically. Distracted by his mother's drunken fall downstairs, Mickey hasn't dismantled the totem when the Heims return home early.

Queen Christina

Popular monarch Queen Christina of Sweden must choose between love and loyalty to her nation when she unexpectedly falls for a Spanish envoy.

The Scarlet Empress

During the 18th century, German noblewoman Sophia Frederica, who would later become Catherine the Great, travels to Moscow to marry the dimwitted Grand Duke Peter, the heir to the Russian throne. Their arranged marriage proves to be loveless, and Catherine takes many lovers, including the handsome Count Alexei, and bears a son. When the unstable Peter eventually ascends to the throne, Catherine plots to oust him from power.

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.