Films A to Z

Twelve year-old Uri reports his teacher Balaban as a spy when he observes him when he meets with a young arab man. Only later does he discover that Balaban's interest in the young arab is romantic rather than political.

Pierre is seventeen and in the middle of puberty. He plays in a band, has sex at parties and secretly tries on women’s clothing and lipstick in front of a mirror. Ever since his father’s death, his mother Aracy has looked after him and his younger sister Jacqueline, spoiling them both. But when he discovers that she stole him from a hospital when he was a new born baby, Pierre’s life changes dramatically. Overnight, his world falls apart and his mother Aracy is arrested. His [...]

Decked out in toreador bolero jackets, paper hats and parade uniforms, four young people dance and sing in a blaze of light and glitter. They are celebrating Teresa’s birthday – with drugs and music in full flow. It will be a long and turbulent night; a decisive night, too, because Teresa is sixteen and still a virgin. Tonight she’s determined to sleep with Stefan, but Stefan either won’t or can’t oblige. Even the red thigh boots Teresa breaks a shop window to get [...]

Mart Crowley’s "The Boys in the Band" (1968) belongs to the seminal artistic works for the gay community. For the first time gay men were not presented as victims or pathetic losers, loners or as societal waste, but rather as people like you and I. Together with Mart Crowley, who leads the audience through fireworks of historical film snippets and interview bits, Crayton Robey traces the phenomenon of success and the protagonists of that time. Nobody could have predicted it. [...]

James, Catherine and Patricia. A house on the beach not far from New York. It is1978. A neighbour with a soft spot for James drops by from time to time. James with his big-checked jacket, his camera and his unfinished novel. Catherine with her paintings and her men’s suits. Patricia with her cigarettes. In his directorial debut, Carter has created a tender, associative film about the friendship of three misfits.James used to be a successful TV soap actor until probable mental illness forced [...]

Dignified, strong and formidable, and oozing erotic attraction: young malambo dancer Gaspar is at one with his passion for dance that he has made his profession. But, as director Santiago Loza makes clear at the beginning of his film, the Argentinian competitive dance malambo is an uncompromising battle against time. This is a dance to which you devote your entire life and, even if you should happen to win the top championship joust, you are henceforth condemned to training the next generation [...]

So, he’s gay. This evening he’s introduced his boyfriend to his mum and later kissed him passionately goodbye in the car. He’s fortunate to have such an open-minded mother – not everyone is as lucky. But she thinks it’s best that he doesn’t tell his father yet. And he certainly shouldn’t make it known in public that he’s gay. A lot of people are prejudiced. Not everyone is as understanding as his mother

One of the many virtues of Sebastian Mihilescu’s startling first feature Mammalia is that you never know where he’s taking you. From one scene to another, the film is always unpredictable, even disconcerting. This is the same feeling Camil (István Téglás), a troubled young man, experiences. He feels diminished and insecure with the women around him, especially with his partner, who disappears to join a secret community of women dedicated to eerie fertility rituals [...]

Gender activist Diane Torr’s worldwide appearances and workshops are now legendary. For the past thirty years, the focus of this performance artist’s work has been an exploration of the theoretical, artistic as well as the practical aspects of gender identity. Katarina Peters’ documentary observes a Diane Torr workshop in Berlin in which a group of open-minded women came together to discover the secrets of masculinity. What makes a man a man and a woman a woman? Precisely when [...]

Mangosteen tells the story of Earth, a young man who returns to his hometown, Rayong, where his sister, Ink, runs a fruit processing factory. During a casual meeting, Earth finds out that his definition of the term “future” is drastically different from his sister’s. The more he tries to involve himself in the fruit juice business, the less he feels needed there. Earth eventually decides to distance himself from the family operation and resumes his old hobby, writing a violent, [...]

Since its inception, the homosexual movement has always numbered gays whose political leanings tend towards the extreme right; these are men who set great store by masculinity and nationalism, who look down on ‘fairies’ and women and propagate anti-Semitism. Writing shortly before his death from Aids at the end of the 1980s, neo-Nazi Michael Kühnen claimed that gay men made better fighters, because having no family made them more independent and braver. My documentary portrays [...]

Ralphie is young and healthy and his girlfriend is pregnant. Yet things do not feel quite right. His job as an Uber driver is neither gratifying nor financially secure. His relationship with his body may also be built on shaky foundations. When he is inducted into a libertarian masculinity cult, the tensions that have been growing inside him surface. Ralphie begins to lose his grip on reality. In his previous film, The Wound, South African filmmaker John Trengove explored how a male rite of passage [...]

He was a catalyst and an illuminator, but also a magnet for scandal. From an early age Robert Mapplethorpe had but one goal which he single-mindedly pursued: to ‘make it’ not just as an artist but also as an art celebrity. He could not have picked a better time: it is the Manhattan of Warhol’s Factory, of Studio 54 and, following the Stonewall riots, an era of unbridled hedonistic sexuality. His first solo exhibition in 1976 already unveils his topics: erotic depictions, flowers [...]

Merlin, a transvestite, and Sanela, a prostitute, share a home in the suburbs of Belgrade. Dzoni, who has returned from fighting on the Bosnian front gets to know them. A bit of sex is what he needs to overcome political violence and macho aggression.

There’s not much going on in this part of rural Argentina where a shy young man named Marcos lives with his family. Theirs is a modest existence, where gender roles are clearly demarcated. The hot summer doesn’t make life any easier, but money needs to be earned and the herd of cattle must be kept together. Marcos manages to carve out little islands of freedom during his routine; in these moments he likes to put make-up on his childlike face or slip into colourful dresses behind closed [...]

Six weeks before his death from cancer, poet Mario Wirz takes a walk with his friend Rosa von Praunheim during which he candidly shares his final thoughts on, among other things, the power of love and positive thinking: “Let’s live!”

A butterfly, a creature symbolising rebirth and a new beginning, epitomises Romina’s and Javier’s world, a world that consists of two parallel realities. In one of them they grow up as siblings who desire each other and try to give shape to their love without sexual fulfilment; in the other they are a young man and woman who form an awkward friendship instead of succumbing to their feelings for each other. Javier finds himself in a discordant relationship with Mariela. Mariela’s [...]

Marungka tjalatjunu (Dipped in Black) follows Yankunytjatjara man Derik Lynch’s road trip back to Country for spiritual healing, as memories from his childhood return. A journey from the oppression of white city life in Adelaide, back home to his remote Anangu Community (Aputula) to perform on sacred Inma ground. Inma is a traditional form of storytelling using the visual, verbal and physical. Itis how Anangu Tjukurpa (story connected to country / dreaming / myth / lore) have been passed [...]

Seng, the son of a »Ragman« comics collector, would like to draw comic book super heros, to the distress of his father. In order to learn, he picks up comic books. The day he steals one from a mom and pop store, he is caught by a police officer. The storekeeper helps Seng out of trouble, but trouble seldom comes alone: Seng’s father suddenly shows up at the Indian shop and sees his boy hanging around with the gay storekeeper. Seng has only one more way out, to flee into fantasy [...]

When the flare lights up the night sky, that is how they know the gasoline is ready for sale, the men on the motorbikes who collect the canisters from the fearless Chitara, her sister Léa and their all-female gang, the sample fuel still burning out on the ground. From the watchtower of their makeshift oil refinery, you can see the lights of Brasília in the distance, although Sol Nascente, one of the continent’s biggest favelas, is a world unto itself, a real setting [...]

  At King’s College, Cambridge in 1909, fellow students Maurice Hall and Clive Durham feel more for each other than mere friendship. But sexual contact, never mind the “unspeakable vice of the Greeks” as their Plato professor calls it, remains taboo. For fear of being ostracised, like one of their classmates, they keep their love secret. Later, after Clive has made a marriage befitting his station, they maintain a purely platonic friendship. When Maurice begins a relationship [...]

This documentary - probably the first cinematic portrait of a trans man - is one of numerous pioneering works by Monika Treut, who is herself an icon of emancipation movements. In this work, Native American Max Wolf Valerio reveals his journey into becoming a different gender. Displaying an extraordinary capacity for self-analysis, he proudly recounts his experiences with the male sex hormone testosterone and talks about the queer community’s hostility towards transsexuals and the adventure [...]

MAYA DEREN'S SINK explores Deren's concepts of space, time and form through visits and projections filmed in her LA and NY homes. Light projections in Deren's intimate space evoke a former time and space providing entree into the homes of an influential filmmaker we will never know. The film reclaims the spaces that inspired her work in order to share it with audiences. Time and space are collapsed as film locations of the 40’s are re-imagined in the present. Performances [...]

Fisherman Julio leaves his idyllic island province to search for his girlfriend Ligaya in Manila, where she allegedly has a job. He signs up at a construction site, where the workers are ruthlessly exploited. One day at the market, he spots the woman who lured Ligaya to the big city. She takes him to the house of a Chinese man, where Julio thinks he recognises his girlfriend at a window. When he loses both his job and his apartment, he ends up with a street hustler, who indoctrinates him into [...]

The two videos in Medicine and Magic work together to try and bridge these two stories from my maternal grandparents’ family histories. I’ve been raised with stories of the medicine men in my family. A bundle that was used successfully to heal people. Stories of bear spirits that took care of us. I don’t know about my Scottish side as much, but I did know some of the last names of my ancestors over there. There was one case with a last name and a location [...]

In West Berlin in the 1960s it was possible to find bars where men could be left to themselves – a fact that was to turn the city into a magnet for young gay men. The protagonists of this film, all still active members of the community today, recall those early years in the city. Theirs are memories of a community that fought steadily for its existence, and of its change, right up to the fall of the Wall. Faced with considerable social repression in the 1970s, a collective gay identity began [...]

Filled with expectations, Etienne moves to Paris from Lyon to study film directing at the Sorbonne. He leaves behind his girlfriend Lucie, promising to call her regularly via Skype. On his course he meets Jean-Noël and Mathias, they too have come to the metropolis from smaller cities and share his passion for cinema. Together they discuss the cinematic canon, read texts by Flaubert and Pasolini, and listen to Bach and Mahler. Jean-Noël proves to be an agreeable friend who [...]

“You guys are awful. You don't even know the girl and the first thing you say is: ‘She's fucking hot.’ She's probably doing a whole lot of cool things you don't even know.” Rolling through São Paulo on her skateboard, Baghdad wears her hair short, her trousers pulled up high, and her sweater tucked into the waistband. Baghdad is cool; she is a girl who respects whom she wants to respect – everyone else might find wet clumps of toilet paper [...]

MIAO MIAO is the title of the film as well as the female protagonist's name. She is a shy exchange student from Japan. Struggling to adjust to her new life in Taiwan, she eventually gets to know one of her female classmates, Ai. Ai is an extroverted girl, who becomes increasingly enamoured with Miao Miao. Oblivious to Ai’s strong feelings for her, Miao Miao only has eyes for the brooding CD shop owner Chen Fei, a young guy with a secret past. He seems determined to block out the world [...]

In this portrait that is multi-layered both in terms of form and content, a gay man confronts the ghosts of his past and explores hidden longings, unrequited love and tormenting feelings of guilt. Miguel was born in 1963 to a conservative, Catholic Lebanese father and an authoritarian mother from a wealthy Syrian family. Numerous conflicts over his national, religious and sexual identity compelled him to flee to Spain in his early twenties. In post-Franco Madrid where he lived an openly gay existence, [...]

17-year-old Gerardo and his friend Bruno have split up. Gerardo finds himself wandering aimlessly about the streets of Mexico City. As he meanders, he is tortured by images: every male body he sees rekindles memories of his lover, who is with him once again in his imagination. However, his wet dreams do not alleviate his suffering, nor does masturbation provide him with any kind of relief. Even his brief, surprising sexual encounters with strangers can’t help him get over the pain of his [...]

Gay Rights Activist. Friend. Lover. Unifier. Politician. Fighter. Icon. Inspiration. Hero. His life changed history, and his courage changed lives. In 1977, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay man to be voted into a major public office in America. His victory was not just a victory for gay rights: he forged coalitions across the political spectrum. From senior citizens to union workers, Harvey Milk transformed the very nature of what [...]

Ten-year-old Cleo has a head full of questions: How can I tell if I'm in love with somebody? How do I know if I prefer boys or girls? Since her older sister began dating another girl, there are new, strange feelings stirring inside Cleo. During a trip to the Norwegian fjords, she broaches the subject with the young couple and is given some helpful advice.

Tommaso is the youngest member of a large family of pasta-makers in Puglia. The Cantone family includes the mother, Stefania, a caring woman who is nonetheless trapped by middle-class conventions; the irascible father Vincenzo, who has high hopes for his progeny; the rather eccentric Aunt Luciana; the rebellious grandmother, who still yearns for her lost love; Tommaso’s sister Elena, a frustrated housewife, and his brother, Antonio, who works at the pasta factory. Today the clan has come [...]

For a Jewish prayer community or “minyan” to be able to hold a service, it must consist of at least ten practising Jews. David, who was born into a Russian immigrant family, is 17 years old and regularly helps out at minyans in Brighton Beach, a district of New York that is characterised by Jewish life. His father, a former boxing coach, his mother and his beloved grandfather all take this for granted. But David, who is just starting to tentatively explore life in the East Village [...]

Tulsa, Oklahoma is a city in the midst of the USA’s Bible Belt with almost 400,000 inhabitants, over 4,000 churches and just one gay and lesbian youth centre. This is the meeting place for Larissa, Ben, ‘D’ and other youths who because of their decision to live gay, lesbian and transgender lives, are either not accepted or, on the contrary, have received strong support from their families and unconditional love. Jannik Splidsboel, whose film How Are You screened in Panorama [...]

Danny is pregnant by Max but she doesn’t get around to telling him at a party. Meanwhile, Max is busy trying out his girlfriend Avishag’s sexual fantasies with her. She wants him to hit her when they have sex. Avishag takes her bruises over to Dror, whose dog she sits. A familiarity develops between the older man and the young woman that neither of them expected. In three loosely connected chapters, director and actor Hadas Ben Aroya’s second feature film portrays a confident [...]

A small Swedish town in 1959. Twelve-year-old Ingemar lives with a dog, his brother and his mother; she is suffering from tuberculosis and is at her wits’ end on account of his escapades. When her health deteriorates, Ingemar is sent away to live with his uncle in the country. Although there is no shortage of excitement in the village as a result of passionate football matches and bizarre events, Ingemar remains a loner. Longingly, his thoughts return to his memories of his family; oscillating [...]

Claudine and Dylan enjoy a happy relationship for the most part. But Dylan in particular is convinced that queer Berlin must surely have more to offer than monogamous lesbianism. And so the women decide to set off on a journey of discovery: Dylan discovers a new sex club where friendly young women help her to chart her own erotic map. Claudine becomes Claude and, at the hotel where she works, meets mature attractive Helen with whom she explores a new approach to love. Being with Claude makes Helen [...]

An ordinary neighbourhood in an ordinary town. Two women sit on a sofa and scratch their pregnant bellies. Four days till the due date. The situation is as unbearable as it is unavoidable. It’s simply intolerable. Masturbation isn’t an option, the clitoris can’t even be reached, and the boyfriend is absent, but he’s boring anyway. The only advantage in having another child is that one no longer has to play with the first one. Artist and filmmaker Joanna Rytel uses claymation [...]

A Lebanese gay couple decides to take a road trip to Ramallah. The film is recorded with their camera as they chronicle their journey. The protagonists and the viewers are invited through the couple's conversations into the universe of a fading city.

Werner Schroeter was one of the most significant proponents of New German Cinema. Schroeter was diagnosed with cancer in 2006. At the time, he was working for the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf gallery on a musical piece entitled ‘Schönheit der Schatten’ (The Beauty of Shadows) based on the works of Robert Schumann and Heinrich Heine. For Schroeter, oscillating between hope and trepidation, it marked the beginning of a race against time. In her film, Elfi Mikesch, who photographed [...]

Patagrande, Rambo, Leidi, Sueca, Pitufo, Lobo, Perro and Bum Bum. Eight stray teenagers, each bearing a code name, form a paramilitary squad on a remote hilltop. They’re instinctively drawn towards hedonism and ferocity. A messenger delivers instructions from the Organisation: they’re to look after a dairy cow called Shakira and an abducted woman from the USA known as Doctora. But their carefree time comes to an end when death pays them a visit and their position is compromised, forcing [...]

Dana returns to Bucharest but decides not to go home. She pays the taxi driver for the whole night. At the same time, Andrei goes to the gym and afterwards has sex with a man. The next morning, Dana and Andrei meet in their marital bed and spend the day together. Perhaps for the last time. A relationship drama in three chapters that describes the current state of a couple over 24 hours. It is not about psychology but rather capturing moods and atmosphere. Even if the conversation between Dana [...]

When a grave illness strikes down her father Paris, Artemis decides to return home to Greece after an absence of some years. Being the sole child of divorced parents, she is the only one who can look after Paris, who requires daily care. Father and daughter embark on a journey into knowledge and revelation, which heralds a new beginning for their relationship. After a series of surprising short films, Moon, 66 Questions is the long-awaited feature debut of Jacqueline Lentzou. It initially [...]

During a conversation late at night, a woman asks her mother how to be a good person. As they talk, the woman thinks about an old lover. Seasons change and memories accumulate that bring no respite.

This is the official documentary record of the first Christopher Street Day celebration in Moscow. The events that took place in May 2006 included a CSD parade, which garnered international attention not least because Moscow's mayor Yuri Luzhkov had tried to ban it. This film shows not only the procession that, followed by international guests and observers, made its way through the centre of Moscow from the Unknown Soldier's Memorial on 27 May, 2006, it also contains footage of a three-day [...]

The people on the dusty streets of Lesotho stare inquisitively at the young woman, who, like Jesus, carries a wooden cross on her back. She looks back into their faces, at mystically beautiful landscapes, a herd of sheep, and a pair of hands that knit unceasingly. What she sees is rendered more visually precise by the black and white, more abstract by the slowed-down images, it is filtered through memories. A raw voice-over – aware that it is not being heard by those being addressed – [...]

Iman liman lives with his wife Maryam and his two daughters in Sweden in an ever-changing succession of refugee hostels. Having fled his former Iranian homeland for fear of persecution, he is looking for ways to secure residence for them, and is earning extra money delivering pizzas on a snowmobile. When Maryam unexpectedly falls pregnant with a third child, and conversations with the authorities become more difficult, Iman decides to resume his career as a wrestler. Although he has promised Maryam [...]

Doris and Mildred are two white women, one in her mid-50s and the other in her early 60's, who become lovers and decide to set up housekeeping together. Mildred is the younger of the two, a lesbian for most of her adult life, and of upper-middle class origin. She is a tenured professor in the Department of Women's Studies at a large University. Doris, in contrast, never attended college, has never had a steady job or predictable income, and has raised Flo, her grown daughter, single-handedly. [...]

“I'm fine with it.” – “Yeah, well, I am not.” After transitioning, it seemed easier for Feña to simply cut all ties with his past. Dealing with the changes was painful enough, let alone his family’s reaction. But when Feña runs into an ex-boyfriend, receives an unexpected visit from his little sister and finds his Chilean father trying to reconnect with him, their lives are suddenly once again intertwined. Compassionate, intimate and frank, [...]

A story about two Arab brothers living in the dismal London borough of Hackney. Sensitive fourteen-year-old Mo idolises his nineteen-year-old brother Rashid who is able to support the family as a shrewd businessman and member of a gang of drug dealers. Rashid hopes that his younger brother Mo will choose a different path in life. When a rival gang stabs to death his best friend, Rashid begins to ask himself some hard questions about the life he is leading. An encounter with a photographer named [...]

Along with his other short film "Five Ways to Kill Yourself" Gus van Sant was awarded with the first TEDDY AWARD for best short film in 1987.

When Phil tells Mona that he’s suddenly found his faith, Mona is dumbstruck. The pub where this brother and sister live is their whole world; this is where they drink, regularly, and far more than is good for them. The pub is their niche. It’s the beginning and end of all their dreams. And now here’s Phil, drivelling on about having been revived and being on some mission or other. Religion seems to have provided Phil with a way of escaping from their boring wilderness; but even [...]