Dawn O’Donnell was a convent girl who became a professional ice skater, travelled the world and then landed up in 1950s Australia, a penniless lesbian. By the time of her death in 2007, she had stormed through Sydney’s gay underworld and built herself an empire of bars, clubs, steam rooms, sex shops and drag shows, inspiring The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. This fascinating documentary explores the mythology (was she a mobster? an arsonist? a murderer?) and life of this shrewd, silver-haired, butch businesswoman.
Herself
1.0Look around. Everything you see and touch can taste like vanilla.
6.7This film speaks of archaic peoples, their customs and mores, in an attempt to make the last snapshots of their traditional lifestyles before they are gone for good.
7.6What is true and what is false in the hideous stories spread about the controversial figure of the Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (12-41), nicknamed Caligula? Professor Mary Beard explains what is accurate and what is mythical in the historical accounts that portray him as an unbalanced despot. Was he a sadistic tyrant, as Roman historians have told, or perhaps the truth about him was manipulated because of political interests?
3.8A short documentary exploring the ways LGBT couples show affection, and how small interactions like holding hands in public can carry, not only huge personal significance, but also the power to create social change.
10.0For the first time on DVD, the Alpha Archives Collection proudly presents a two part feature length documentary celebrating the history of the Amicus Productions film company. Founded in the early 1960s by Americans Milton Subotsky and Max J. Rosenberg, Amicus produced some classic (now cult) horror movies, including Dr. Terror's House Of Horrors, The House That Dripped Blood, Tales From The Crypt, Asylum and From Beyond The Grave. Featuring interviews with key individuals who worked for Amicus (actors, directors, etc.), and with many rare photographs and production designs throughout, this documentary is a must-see for fans of British horror cinema.
0.0Two screens of film about - and sometimes shot by - Claes Oldenburg, detailing his inspiration, his methods and his relationship with his partner Hannah Wilke.
3.0Wes Hurley's autobiographical tale of growing up gay in Soviet Union Russia, only to escape with his mother, a mail order bride, to Seattle to face a whole new oppression in his new Christian fundamentalist American dad.
0.0A documentary that takes an in depth look at a government sanctioned art school in Cuba and its students. Interviews of various artists attending the school allow viewers a glimpse into their personal and professional lives.
Kathy's family left on a Saturday morning in 1965. The rumble of bulldozers echoed through the neighborhood, and her block was empty. Federally-funded urban renewal had arrived in Charlottesville, scattering dozens of families like Kathy's. The once-vibrant African American community, built by formerly enslaved men and women who had secured a long-denied piece of the American dream, disappeared.
10.0Though Henry Kissinger is often giving short statements to the media, he refuses detailed interviews about his own life. Now he has agreed to answer questions about his person in an extensive documentary.
10.0Tailor is a transgender cartoonist that shares in his web page other trans people’s experiences and their challenges in society. Film about transgender, made by transgender crew.
6.8With more than 300 days a year, the sun dominates this country so much that it’s even shining from their flag. It’s a barren land, sometimes it’s like it’s from another planet but still familiar. It is land of contrasts and colours with wide landscapes and fascinating deserts. Influenced by various cultures during colonization and now reborn from the shadows of Apartheid in 1990, Namibia gives a beautiful collage of culture, language, art, music and food. Everyone who loves an adventure should travel to Namibia, the precious corner of our world full of incredible natural wonders. The experience of endless landscapes and an unparalleled blaze of colour make Namibia unforgettable. NAMIBIA – THE SPIRIT OF WILDERNESS invites you on a trip whose fascination will never let you go: From the Namib Desert over the breath-taking Fish River Canyon to the spectacular Etosha National Park where you will see wild elephants, antelopes, giraffes, zebras and lions.
6.0This documentary offers a behind-the-scenes look at Björk and her touring entourage for the 2001 Vespertine tour. It includes interviews with harpist Zeena Parkins, the Inuit choir from Greenland, electronic duo Matmos, and an ongoing conversation with Björk herself about her recordings and her tours. The documentary is interspersed with live footage of songs from the tour shot by Ragnheidur Gestsdóttir, which themselves correspond to the performances chosen for the Vespertine Live album.
8.0An inside look into the effort to preserve Philadelphia's ballroom scene, a black LGBTQ safe-space that has endured for 30 years.
7.2Star Trek: Evolutions is an 80-minute Paramount Pictures Star Trek documentary compilation which was first released on 22 September 2009 as part of the Star Trek: The Next Generation Motion Picture Collection Blu-ray and DVD sets.
5.9In this home movie collection of gay men, memory serves as an act of hope, power, and above all, resilience.
0.0There never was a star quite like her. Adored by adults and children alike, at four she already led at the box office — ahead of Gable and Cooper. Her films saved a movie studio from bankruptcy, and a President credited her with raising the morale of Depression-weary Americans. Her earliest movies gave a foretaste of her talents and soon would become the songs and dances that helped make those movies immortal.
Eighteen years in the making, two-headed cow started off as a black and white film that followed Dexter Romweber and his drummer Crow on a rock and roll tour along the same route as General Sherman. The film was not finished due to many circumstances, but the filmmakers were able to resume the film seventeen years later. After major TV appearances, a stint on a major label, bouts of depression and drug addiction, the film took on a different tone and poignancy.
8.0Alastair Sooke champions pop art as one of the most important art forms of the twentieth century, peeling back pop's frothy, ironic surface to reveal an art style full of subversive wit and radical ideas. In charting its story, Alastair brings a fresh eye to the work of pop art superstars Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein and tracks down pop's pioneers, from American artists like James Rosenquist, Claes Oldenburg and Ed Ruscha to British godfathers Peter Blake and Allen Jones. Alastair also explores how pop's fascination with celebrity, advertising and the mass media was part of a global art movement, and he travels to China to discover how a new generation of artists are reinventing pop art's satirical, political edge for the 21st century.
