This is Just To Say was made in the summer of 1999 through a workshop opportunity offered by Inside Out Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival for queer youth. This is Just to Say documents several young men and women’s first queer experiences through interviews accomplished by simply approaching strangers on a busy Toronto street on a Sunday afternoon. Through invasive conversation This is Just to Say explores personal narrative and identity politics in the "post" era; a testament about being young and queer in 1999.
Blind blues musician Paul Pena is perhaps best known for his song "Jet Airliner". In 1993, Pena heard Tuvan throat singing over his shortwave radio and subsequently taught himself how to reproduce these extraordinary sounds. This documentary follows him to Tuva, where he takes part in a throat singing competition. Languages featured in the film include English, Russian and Tuvan.
CORPUS explores the mass adulation and explosive posthumous recognition of Selena Quintanilla, the Tejano rock singer murdered by the president of her fan club in 1995. Pushing beyond the mainstream media's fascination with her violent death, Portillo interviews Selena's family and friends as well as the devoted fans that pilgrimage to Selena's grave in Corpus Christi, Texas, to pay homage to the slain star. Moving and provocative, this humble investigative portrait explores Selena's cultural significance as a pop icon and shines a light on the hopes, fantasies, fears, and realities of young Latinas today.
Based on photographer William Yang's one man stage show, "Sadness" chronicles two diverging narratives through the use of slide photography, oral history and stylised recreation. One story follows Yang's pilgrimage into the heart of the North Queensland sugar cane fields as he investigates the murder of his uncle Fang Yuen. The other is a series of moving portraits of the many friends and lovers Yang has lost to AIDS. Director Tony Ayres skillfully weaves these two separate stories together creating a powerful testament to family, friends, love and loss. Cinematography by Tristan Milani. Narrated by William Yang.
From 1939 to 1942, in the village of Chabannes in central France, more than 400 Jewish children were hidden, schooled, and ultimately saved through the heroic efforts of the school's director and teachers and of Jewish rescue organizations that first got the children there, and then, as war closed around them, got all but a handful out safely. In 1996, two aged teachers and the children and their families reunite. Lisa Gossels, whose father and uncle were among the children, records it. Survivors' comments, photos and drawings from the war, footage of the school and town, and a celebration of the heroism and leadership of the school's director, Felix Chevrier, comprise the film.
In 1995, at the urging of her then-husband, an Oklahoma housewife submitted a topless photo of herself to a men's magazine, thus launching her phenomenal career as porn star Stacy Valentine. In this eye-opening and refreshingly even-handed film, Valentine candidly discusses the inner-workings and occupational hazards of the adult entertainment world, touching on the glamour -- and frequent emptiness -- of life in "the business."
Monika Treut explores the worlds and thoughts of several female to male transgendered individuals. As with Treuts first film, Jungfrauenmaschine, Gendernauts, enters a minority sector of San Fransisco culture. The characters in this film have a lot to complain about, and they do. They are people whose physical appearance (female) does not match their inner sexual identity (male). The subject is pinpointed in the film independant of sexual orientation. Leave your conservative hats at the door, this is going to need your special attention.
This sequel to "Before Stonewall" documents the history of gay and lesbian life from the riots at Stonewall in 1969 to the present. Narrated by Melissa Etheridge, the film explains the work, struggles, victories, and defeats the gay community has weathered to become a vibrant and integral part of North American society.
BELFAST, MAINE is a film about ordinary experience in a beautiful old New England port city. It is a portrait of daily life with particular emphasis on the work and the cultural life of the community. Among the activities shown in the film are the work of lobstermen, tug-boat operators, factory workers, shop owners, city counselors, doctors, judges, policemen, teachers, social workers, nurses and ministers. Cultural activities include choir rehearsal, dance class, music lessons and theatre production.
A film that describes the love-hate relationship between Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski, the deep trust between the director and the actor, and their independently and simultaneously hatched plans to murder one another.
The story of New Zealander Helen Todd's law suit against an Indonesian general that she pursued after her son, Kamal, was shot dead in the Dili massacre in East Timor.
Chantal Akerman investigates the American Deep South through the story of a lynching and grisly murder of an African-American man that took place in Texas in 1998.
Even as scientists work diligently to authenticate the Dead Sea Scrolls, a historical and momentous find for archaeologists, questions surface about their true origin. Who wrote them? Did they truly know Jesus? And what do the scrolls mean for modern-day Christianity? This riveting documentary aims to find the answers to these and many other questions and shares new information about this important archaeological artifact.
A documentary taking critical aim at Hollywood's abiding fascination with and fantasies about all things eastern. Juxtaposing film clips from the 20s through the 80s, HOLLYWOOD HAREMS explores the organization of gender, race, and sexuality in Hollywood's portrayal of the exotic east an indiscriminate fusion of things Arab, Persian, Chinese and Indian. In abridging cultural plurality and difference, these technicolor fantasies have worked both to shape and reinforce often derogative assumptions about peoples of the east while at the same time reinscribing the moral, spiritual, and cultural supremacy of the Anglo-European west.
One of the most enigmatic artists of the 20th century, writer, composer and wanderer Paul Bowles (1910-1999) is profiled by a filmmaker who has been obsessed with his genius since age nineteen. Set against the dramatic landscape of North Africa, the mystery of Bowles (famed author of The Sheltering Sky) begins to unravel in Jennifer Baichwal's poetic and moving Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles. Rare, candid interviews with the reclusive Bowles--at home in Tangier, as well as in New York during an extraordinary final reunion with Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs--are intercut with conflicting views of his supporters and detractors. At the time in his mid-eighties, Bowles speaks with unprecedented candor about his work, his controversial private life and his relationships with Gertrude Stein, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, the Beats, and his wife and fellow author Jane Bowles.
For fans of comedy, Sam Kinison needs no introduction. His scathing comedy tackled tough topics no other comedian dared to touch. Fed up and disenfranchised with his career as a Pentacostal preacher, Sam left the ministry to try his hand at comedy. Almost immediately, and thanks in part to the foresight of Rodney Dangerfield who showcased Sam on an HBO special, his piercing scream, extreme humor and irreverent take on life attracted attention. Containing rare, early footage of Sam preaching and performing stand up at the world famous Comedy Store, the Award Winning "Why Did We Laugh" tells the story of a comedic genius who touched a deeper chord in people than most entertainers. Sadly, Sam was taken from us far too early, yet leaving us with a lasting and unique legacy.
"Steven Holl: The Body in Space" explores the career of the innovative, highly renowned American architect. In this portrait Holl presents some of his most acclaimed works, including the Makuhari Housing Complex in Chiba, Japan and the Chapel of St. Ignatius in Seattle. Centered around the completion of Holl's Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, the film observes his process and reasoning throughout the duration of the project