LGBTQ Studies

Shot in Cambodia over 5 years, Lotus Sports Club, is an inspiring coming-of-age story that centers around Leak, a teenage trans man who plays football in the under-21s women’s team of Kampong Chhnang, and Pa Vann, the coach and father-figure to Leak and other LGBTQ+ players on the team. This compelling, fascinating, and empowering story will take the viewers on a unique and emotional journey through a world of love and solidarity between individuals who have finally found a community they would only have dreamt before.

HOLDING BACK THE TIDE

A "wondrous and wonderful documentary" (The New York Times) that traces the oyster through its many life cycles in New York, once the world’s oyster capital. Now their specter haunts the city through queer characters embodying ancient myth, discovering the overlooked history and biology of the bivalve that built the city.

BEYOND THE AGGRESSIVES: 25 YEARS LATER

Two decades ago, the groundbreaking film The Aggressives showcased the remarkable stories of Chin, Octavio, Trevon, and Kisha — a watershed moment of visibility for masc-presenting BIPOC individuals that gave voice to a community that hadn’t seen themselves authentically represented in cinema before. Now, nearly 20 years later, the same four protagonists reunite to reflect on their past and envision new futures.

DEAR THIRTEEN

An incisive and timely documentary, Dear Thirteen weaves together nine stories of thirteen-year-olds from across the globe. Video diaries and candid interviews reveal how global issues are shaping – and being shaped by – young people: gender identity, rising anti-Semitism, gun violence, and racial divisions. This empathetic portrait of a new generation goes beyond stereotypes of adolescence to capture the complexity of finding a way into adulthood today.

NAKED GARDENS

Naked Gardens immerses audiences in the complex, unseen world of a family nudist resort in the Florida Everglades. Filmed over one season at this lush tropical campsite, the film follows the stories of individuals – rebellious retirees, LGBTQ loners, exiles from conservative America, and families with young children – all drawn to an unusual community, which promises both non-conformist values, and for some, a cheap place to live.

ANHELL69

After members of the queer scene in Medellín, Colombia are cast for a vampire movie, the film’s protagonist dies of a heroin overdose at age 21. As the youth in Colombia grapple with a disarmingly high rate of suicide and drug overdoses, the documentary Anhell69 explores this generation’s “no future” mindset while chronicling the making of a new film, a film without borders or genders: a “trans film” about all those people who don’t belong to anything or anyone.

QUEER AND FRUM

A moving and powerful short documentary, Queer and Frum is the story of two former Orthodox Jews, Chaim Levin and Lieb Swartz-Brownstein, and their unique journeys to becoming openly queer. Shot in Orthodox neighborhoods of New York City, the documentary takes a deep look into Hasidic life and the experience of living with intersecting identities in a religious world.

GUEULE D'MOUR (LADY KILLER)

The first collaboration between filmmaker Jean Grémillon and legendary actor Jean Gabin, this adaptation of a novel by André Boucler features the young Gabin as a foreign-legion Casanova – the “lady killer” of the title – who meets his match in the mysterious seductress Madeleine. "Not every rarity is a revelation, but Lady Killer strikes me as the real deal." – The New Yorker. New 4K Restoration

PACIFICTION

Named the Best Film of the Year by Cahiers du Cinema, and acclaimed by numerous publications, Pacifiction is a mesmerizing feature from filmmaker Albert Serra that follows a French bureaucrat (Benoit Magimel in an extraordinary performance) drifting through a fateful trip to a French Polynesian island. "One of the most beautiful and rigorously introspective movies of this or any year, a film that makes you deeply ponder the fate of humanity itself."(IndieWire)

CODED: THE HIDDEN LOVE OF J.C. LEYENDECKER

J.C. Leyendecker was one of the most prominent artists of his time, but his story is largely forgotten. Forced to keep his sexuality a secret, his coded imagery spoke directly to the gay community and laid the foundation for LGBTQ+ representation in advertising today.

NORTH BY CURRENT

A visual rumination on the understated relationships between mothers and children, truths and myths, losses and gains. After the inconclusive death of his young niece, filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown, preparing to make a film about a broken criminal justice system. Instead, he pivots to excavate the depths of generational addiction, Christian fervor, and trans embodiment.

MAURICE HINES: BRING THEM BACK

An intimate portrait of an outspoken showman who with humor and grace navigates the highs and lows of a seven-decade career, and a complex relationship with his superstar brother, Gregory Hines. Maurice and friends — Chita Rivera, Mercedes Ellington and Debbie Allen — tell tales from his seven-decade career, while reflecting on the ever-present challenges of being a gay, black man in show biz.

THE MOUTH OF THE WOLF

This haunting documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Pietro Marcello, director of Martin Eden and Lost and Beautiful is a sui generis love story, following the 20-year relationship between a Sicilian heavy named Vincenzo and a trans convict named Mary after their meet-cute in prison. But Marcello isn’t merely content to render their romance in all its love and complexity: The Mouth of the Wolf is also a lyrical, sensuous, and melancholy tribute to the port city of Genoa, capturing its singular aura and its intoxicating air of eternity.

IN THE FAMILY

The Independent Spirit Award-nominated debut of acclaimed filmmaker Patrick Wang (A Bread Factory, The Grief of Others), In The Family is a heartfelt story woven around child custody, two-Dad families, loss, interracial relations, the American South, and the nature of what it means to be in a family, all explored with ambitious and rewarding nuance.

TRIPLE CONSCIOUSNESS: Films by Akosua Adoma Owusu

Akosua Adoma Owusu is a Ghanaian-American filmmaker, producer and cinematographer whose award-winning work addresses the collision of identities, and themes such as feminism, queerness and African immigrants interacting in African, white American, and black American culture. This edition presents thirteen of her short films.

EL REMOLINO (THE SWIRL)

In recent years, the town of El Remolino in Chiapas, Mexico has suffered from some of the country's worst flooding. This lyrical documentary surveys the social and ecological impact, from schools that can't open to farms that can no longer operate.

FORT BUCHANAN

A bracingly original debut, filmmaker Benjamin Crotty uses the tragicomic plight of a frail young man stranded at a military outpost amid a lascivious band of army wives to craft a queer soap opera for the ages.

ORIENTED

An exceptional, inspirational documentary about three gay Palestinian friends in Tel Aviv who form a non-violent group to fight for gender and national equality.

VICTORY DAY

A courageous, essential portrait of what its like to be gay in Russia today, from Alina Rudnitskaya, one of the country's most important filmmakers.