

The Advocate for Fagdom unites the puzzle pieces one by one. Testimonies are combined with rare archive images. Art galeries present movie extracts that are succeeded by images shot on location. And the other way round. Writers, film makers, art galeries owners, actors and actresses, photographers, producers, friends and loved ones all join in a game of interpretation, analysis or simple anecdotes. John Waters, Bruce Benderson, Harmony Korine, Gus Van Sant, Richard Kern, Rick Castro and others deliver their impressions, theories and confessions. Everything blends into the fascinating portrait of a singular person blessed with singular talents. A complex personality at war not with a system but all systems. The portrait of a man constantly moving between his punk attitude and extreme sensibility.
6.8This 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.
6.0A deliciously scandalous portrait of unsung Hollywood legend Scotty Bowers, whose bestselling memoir chronicled his decades spent as sexual procurer to the stars.
6.8A story of two coalitions – ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group) – whose activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition. Despite having no scientific training, these self-made activists infiltrated the pharmaceutical industry and helped identify promising new drugs, moving them from experimental trials to patients in record time.
7.9Those who knew iconic funnyman John Candy best share his story, in their own words, through never-before-seen archival footage, imagery, and interviews.
6.9Nude men in rubber suits, close-ups of erections, objects shoved in the most intimate of places—these are photographs taken by Robert Mapplethorpe, known by many as the most controversial photographer of the twentieth century. Openly gay, Mapplethorpe took images of male sex, nudity, and fetish to extremes that resulted in his work still being labelled by some as pornography masquerading as art. But less talked about are the more serene, yet striking portraits of flowers, sculptures, and perfectly framed human forms that are equally pioneering and powerful.
8.1A tribute to Chadwick Boseman, celebrating his life and legacy.
7.5In a warehouse in the heart of Los Angeles, a dwindling handful of devoted craftspeople maintain more than 80,000 student musical instruments, the largest remaining workshop in America of its kind. Meet four unforgettable characters whose broken-and-repaired lives have been dedicated to bringing so much more than music to the schoolchildren of this city.
6.8Though legendary lyricist Howard Ashman died far too young, his impact on Broadway, movies, and the culture at large were incalculable. Told entirely through rare archival footage and interviews with Ashman’s family, friends, associates, and longtime partner Bill Lauch, Howard is an intimate tribute to a once-in-a-generation talent and a rousing celebration of musical storytelling itself.
7.5A documentary chronicling Queen and Lambert's incredible journey since they first shared the stage together on "American Idol" in 2009.
6.7The life and career of one of comedy's most inimitable modern voices, Mr. Gilbert Gottfried.
7.2Exuberant, eye-opening movie that serves up a dazzling hundred-year history of the role of gay men and lesbians have had on the silver screen. Film contains fabulous footage from 120 films showing the changing face of cinema sexuality, from cruel stereotypes to covert love to the activist triumphs of the 1990s.
7.1A detailing of the rise to prominence and global sporting superstardom of six supremely talented young Manchester United football players (David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil and Gary Neville). The film covers the period 1992-1999, culminating in Manchester United's European Cup triumph.
6.6Marlon Riggs, with assistance from other gay Black men, especially poet Essex Hemphill, celebrates Black men loving Black men as a revolutionary act. The film intercuts footage of Hemphill reciting his poetry, Riggs telling the story of his growing up, scenes of men in social intercourse and dance, and various comic riffs, including a visit to the "Institute of Snap!thology," where men take lessons in how to snap their fingers: the sling snap, the point snap, the diva snap.
7.4The life and career of an actor, artist, and icon. His own journey through his own camera.
8.2A portrait of singer-songwriter Shawn Mendes' life, chronicling the past few years of his rise and journey.
6.5Embrace follows body image activist Taryn Brumfitt's crusade as she explores the global issue of body loathing, inspiring us to change the way we feel about ourselves and think about our bodies.
6.9An impressionistic portrait of the iconic actor Harry Dean Stanton comprised of intimate moments, film clips from some of his 250 films and his renditions of American folk songs.
6.9Brilliant, long in-the-works story of the life and art of the world's greatest comedian and the cinema's first genius, Charlie Chaplin. Produced, written and directed by renowned film critic Richard Schickel.
6.9Fueled by a raging libido, Wild Turkey, and superhuman doses of drugs, Thompson was a true "free lance, " goring sacred cows with impunity, hilarity, and a steel-eyed conviction for writing wrongs. Focusing on the good doctor's heyday, 1965 to 1975, the film includes clips of never-before-seen (nor heard) home movies, audiotapes, and passages from unpublished manuscripts.
7.0The most comprehensive retrospective of the '80s action film genre ever made.
0.0"Panic Bodies is a 70-minute, six-part exploration of the ways we experience the body's betrayals: disease, decline and death. The film is a panorama of emotionally charged recollections of strange relatives and estranged siblings, staged recreations of fast-fading pasts and personal mythologies, and reflections on the anxious states created by the body's fragile claims on time and space. It's about being a stranger in your own skin. Panic Bodies perfects the phantom quality of any good work about mourning, but it is not reducible to that. It is also enlivened by the intimacy that comes from having made a spectacle of personal secrets." (Kathleen Pirrie Adams, Xtra)
5.9It often happens that at the moment of death, transgender individuals are shorn of their identity. Their families are ashamed, the funeral takes place in secret, and on the tomb appears the name the deceased had before their transition, in one stroke nullifying the entire life path they had chosen. The same thing happened to Antonia. Her girlfriends gather to honor her memory and give her back her identity denied. In telling her story, the film’s stars, all drawn from the variegated transgender world, interweave the narrative with tales of their own lives, experiences, and memories.
0.0Documentary film about Catholic Church teachings about homosexuality. Describes the "third way", the lifestyle lead by orthodox gay Catholics practicing celibacy out of personal choice, an often overlooked demographic in the debates about homosexuality in the Church.
6.2Paper Dolls follows the lives of transgender migrant workers from the Philippines who work as health care providers for elderly Orthodox Jewish men and perform as drag queens during their spare time. It also delves into the lives of societal outcasts who search for freedom and acceptance.
5.6After an unlikely casting onto a reality television show, 47-year old suburban telemarketer Ed Popil leaves his job to pursue a full-time entertainment industry career as his drag queen alter ego, 1960’s era housewife Mrs. Kasha Davis.
4.3A rare look inside Cuba’s LGBT community, this compelling film follows the efforts of Mariela Castro, daughter of President Raúl Castro, as she champions LGBT social reforms and acceptance of diversity.
0.0Quearborn & Perversion: An Early History of Lesbian & Gay Chicago (2009, 109 min) is a documentary on LGBTQ life in Chicago from 1934 to 1974. Moving from the speakeasys and Henry Gerber’s founding of the Society for Human Rights in the 1930s, to the underground social structure of the 1940s and 1950s, to the dawn of consciousness-raising entities such as the Daughters of Bilitis and Mattachine Midwest in the 1960’s, and concluding with the emergence of the gay liberation movement with the first Pride March and opening of the first community center in the early 1970s.
10.0A Biography documentary going behind the scenes of the hit show 'Glee,' featuring interviews with creators and a handful of cast members as well as never-before-told stories from its conceptual beginning through the casting process.
10.0Garden of Des Moines is an intimate interview-style short film that follows drag performers in Iowa as they navigate the challenges of being queer in a conservative state. Through personal stories, the film explores the difficulties they face, from political pushback to societal pressures, while highlighting the joy, resilience, and freedom they find in drag. Set against Iowa's landscape, the film captures the vibrant, defiant beauty of queer expression flourishing in unexpected places
6.5A young teacher in Zurich in the 1950s falls in love with a transvestite star but is torn between his bourgeois existence and his commitment to homosexuality. He joins a gay organization that is eventually seen as the pioneer of gay emancipation in Europe.
1.0Narrated by Linda Hunt, this documentary examines the life of the late author and gay rights activist Paul Monette. Born in 1945 to a well-off Massachusetts family, Monette grows up unable to accept his homosexuality, for years hiding it from his loved ones while struggling to develop as a writer. In 1978, Monette publishes his first novel, which allows him to come out to his parents. After losing one lover to AIDS in 1986, he becomes a ferocious advocate for awareness of the disease.
4.3Fred Martinez was a Navajo youth slain at the age of 16 by a man who bragged to his friends that he 'bug-smashed a fag'. But Fred was part of an honored Navajo tradition - the 'nadleeh', or 'two-spirit', who possesses a balance of masculine and feminine traits.
4.9A former U.S. Navy Seal seeks life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness living life as a transgender woman.
5.4Violeta leads a normal life in a well-off family, with loving parents, surrounded by everything the heart of an eleven-year-old girl might wish for. But she hasn’t always been the pretty girl she is today; she was born a boy. At age 6, she baffled her parents (the famous adult movie stars Nacho Vidal and Franceska Jaimes) when she told them she wanted to be called and dress as a girl. After the initial shock, they decided to give her all their support on the long and tough road that will lead to her becoming a woman someday. Violeta faces many challenges, medical (such as deciding whether or not to take hormone-blockers to stop the development of masculine features as soon as puberty kicks in) and legal (obtaining an ID card with her new name and gender). Later, she may consider getting a sex reassignment procedure, or the possibility of becoming a mother through adoption.
2.7In November 2014 the Iconic club Madame Jojos closed its doors. This event being interpreted by many as the death knell of Soho.The gentrification of Soho affects the LGBT community and its Drag Queen sub-culture, but the cabaret atmosphere of the entire neighborhood in enormous ways. This active pursuit to destroy a bubbling and vibrant part of the city's heart is viewed by many as an atrocity akin to turning the lights off on Broadway. Over 3rd of London's music venues have been closed in recent years and no one noticed. An active movement to bring a halt to this disaster has begun to unfold with one organization after another emerging to fight for Soho. Organizations made up of citizens and celebrities have sprung up to combat this onslaught. Will they win this battle and save Soho?
3.4Around the world there has been a huge increase in the number of children being referred to gender clinics. Increasingly, parents are encouraged to adopt a 'gender affirmative' approach - fully supporting their children's change of identity. But is this approach right?
5.5In the spotlight of global media coverage, the first transgender woman ever to perform as Don Giovanni in a professional opera, makes her historic debut in one of the reddest states in the U.S.
2.7Originally broadcast on ABC's True Stories in 1993, Feed Them to the Cannibals tells the story of Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. It was the first time cameras were allowed at Sleaze Ball and the Mardi Gras Party.
7.0Featuring new, previously unseen footage documenting the bizarre and unsettling things that happened to filmmakers David Farrier and Dylan Reeve as Tickled premiered at film festivals and theaters in 2016. Lawsuits, private investigators, disrupted screenings and surprise appearances are just part of what they encounter along the way. Amidst new threats, the duo begins to answer questions that remained once the credits rolled on Tickled, including whether the disturbing behavior they uncovered will ever come to an end.
3.8A documentary incorporating footage of Montgomery Clift’s most memorable films; interviews with family and friends, and rare archival material stretching back to his childhood. What develops is the story of an intense young boy who yearned for stardom, achieved notable success in such classic films as From Here to Eternity and I Confess, only to be ruined by alcohol addiction and his inability to face his own fears and homosexual desires. Montgomery Clift, as this film portrays him, may not have been a happy man but he never compromised his acting talents for Hollywood.