Must Watch: ILIAS Short Documentary

If you have four and a half minutes, check out the short documentary ILIAS from Swedish filmmaker Joel Hördegård. ILIAS recounts one man's navigation through daily life in Greece where civil unions between gay men are legal, but they still have no protections against discrimination and are often harassed and beaten by others and get zero relief from the police. Worse, sometimes it is the police committing the violence against gays.

This brief documentary is definitely worth a few minutes of  your time. You can check out other work from Joel Hördegård here.

Must Watch: "Sticks and Stones: Bambi Lake" Documentary

Director/Filmmaker/Musician Silas Howard's latest documentary covers the mesmerizing life of of Bambi Lake, a landmark transsexual punk rocker from San Francisco’s fringe art scene. Howard’s documentary has Lake herself recount the story of a young woman who winds up in the midst of a red light district lifestyle in San Francisco and somehow found her ways on stage opening for David Bowie. The 15-minute film touches upon the early, pre-AIDS epidemic queer scene filled with promiscuity and hustling that Bambi called home.

From the official description:

“Every street has a story.” Sticks & Stones is an intimate documentary about a song, a street, and a diva. Bambi Lake, a notorious San Francisco transgender performer and entertainer, takes us on a stroll down Polk Street, sharing anecdotes and the history behind her song "Golden Age of Hustlers," which was written about her time as a street hustler in the mid-70’s. She landed on Polk Street after a stint with the Cockettes and prior to regular gigs at renowned 80s/90spunk venue, the Mabuhey Gardens.

Honestly, I was in awe of the stories of hanging out with Bowie and Iggy Pop in Europe. The insane list of lovers, friends, and mentors, some in the punk scene, some not, includes Henry Rollins from his Black Flag days, Exene Cervenka from X, The Stranglers, Ginger Coyote, and so many more.  But more touching are the tales of being a stripper, friends passing away, homelessness, transgender struggles, and now being banned from some of the bars and clubs that she loves.

In the interview with Pitchfork, Silas Howard talks about his involvement with the early San Francisco queer community and his role as a guitarist in the queer punk band Tribe 8. When asked about his first time meeting Bambi, Howard said, “I went to the gay pride parade and all of a sudden there was this commotion on the sidelines and there was this tow truck pulling a fake cop car, and it was surrounded by all these punks and drag queens with baseball bats and high heel shoes smashing the cop car. And then in front of it it said "NO APOLOGIES, NO REGRETS." It was this really wild, good-looking, sexy, performative group of people that were very irreverent. The humor was really gallows humor. For myself, I was 18, and knew "that’s my people."

Silas Howard has been named the first Trans director of Jill Soloway’s original Golden Globe winning and Emmy winning series Transparent. He is also known for directing Hudson Valley Ballers, award winning, Sundance premiered By Hook or By Crook, SXSW-premiered Sunset Stories, and is currently working on a musical film for legendary artist Peaches.

Sticks & Stones is totally worth fifteen minutes of your time. Watch below.

Playing Gay: How America Came Out on Television Documentary Kickstarter!

Hey, check out the Kickstarter for the awesome documentary Playing Gay: How America Came Out on Television. The film is being executive produced by My So Called Life's Wilson Cruz. Looks like they have it mostly in the can, but need some crowd funding help to finish up the project and give it a proper release. Apparently a lot of the expense is paying the network's licensing fees to air some of the television show footage.

Here's some of their pitch:

There has been a major shift in the hearts and minds of America over the past four decades. Television was both the catalyst for, and a powerful reflection of Americans’ views on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.
We urgently need your help to tell this story. We are lining up interviews with actors and directors who have played key roles in the history of LGBT people on TV, but we need the money and resources to go film them and to make this film a reality.
Any amount you can afford to give will make a difference -- just as the hundreds of small contributions on television have made a difference in LGBT rights.

Take a look at some of the videos below. They are pretty darn compelling evidence that this wonderful project needs to be funded.

Also, please be sure to visit their KICKSTARTER PAGE and give a few dollars if you can spare it.




Wilson Cruz talks about what it meant for him to audition for the part of Rickie Vasquez on My So-Called Life.


Michael Douglas on his romance with Matt Damon: "We just played it as a love story."

Watch: Short Documentary "From the Fringes, To the Forefront"

In 2012, before Britain finally legalized gay marriage, film students Isabelle Willaby, Zaid Thanoon, Rebecca Dudley, and Ray Shaahu made the wonderful short documentary "From the Fringes, To the Forefront." They have finally released it to the public. The ten minute mini-doc recounts what it was like to be gay in England in the 60s. Until 1967, being homosexual was a criminal act and men were often jailed if caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The film does a terrific job interviewing several aging Brits who were young adults living in the notorious Machester Village the 60s. They discuss the club scene, the police harassment, and the changing times as homosexuals finally started protesting the way they were treated. Towards the end of the movie, one of the men laments that too many of the kids today take their freedom to be openly gay for granted and do not even realize, or care to know, the historic struggles of the past generations.

Anyway, take ten minutes and watch this film. It's totally worth your time.

Watch: Prick (2014) Short Documentary About Gay Tattoo Artist Henry Hate

Jake Narang of Vile Films teamed up with Dazed Digital to create this interesting seven and a half minute look into the world of fine artist and tattooist to the stars Henry Hate. Based out of London, Hate's tattoo client list includes Boy George, Alexander McQueen, Pete Doherty, Anna Vissi, David Cross, Paul Thompson of Franz Ferdinand, and perhaps most famously, Amy Winehouse. His relationship with Winehouse prompted tabloid The Sun to run a story on Hate in which they revealed personal and private information without his consent. Of course, litigation ensued.

This documentary does a nice job allowing Hate to recount how his homosexuality clashed with his religious upbringing. After leaving the Army he sought refuge in Queercore: a vibrant and unabashed gay punk scene. Hate also discusses his stint in pornography! Not included, but worth mentioning, is Hate's short-lived career with the Tom of Finland Foundation where he caused controversy by using female erotic art in the the foundation's seasonal newsletter! 

Anyway, watch the documentary below. It is well worth your time! 

Watch: Coming Out Under Fire Documentary Trailer - Finally Released On-Demand

Originally released in 1994, author Allan Bérubé teamed up with filmmaker Arthur Dong to create a wonderful documentary about being gay in the military during World War II.  The pair sat down with many of the service men and women interviewed in Bérubé's book Coming Out Under Fire. In 1996, PBS aired the documentary and it went on to win a Peabody Award in addition to the numerous accolades it won at film festivals around the world.

Coming Out Under Fire features nine gay and lesbian veterans who recount how they joined the patriotic war against fascism in the 1940s only to find themselves fighting two battles: one for their country and another for their right to serve. They first remember warm and entertaining stories of finding each other in a compulsory heterosexual environment and reminisce over tales of first love and deep friendships. Their good times were short-lived, however, as they became targets of newly created anti-homosexual policies which called for witch hunts, dehumanizing interrogations, involuntary psychiatric treatments, and the incarceration of suspected homosexuals into "queer stockades." The final humiliation was a dishonorable discharge which stripped a soldier of all veterans benefits as well as being officially branded a "sex pervert" for life.

Twenty years later, the movie has finally been released to Vimeo On Demand. For a small fee, you can watch the movie in its entirety. What makes this even more touching is that we have lost almost all of our WWII vets to old age, even documentarian Allan Bérubé passed away in 2007. Watch the trailer below. And if you have $3 to spare, watch the full documentary. It's pretty great.

Watch: Coming Out in the 1970s Short Documentary

In this terrific fifteen minute short documentary, directors Phil Siegel and Gabriel Gasca enlist four young activists to interview elder gay, lesbian and trans-gender activists who came out in the 1970s. They explore how the catalyst of the Stonewall riots enabled a new generation to come out and begin to organize, get visible and fight for rights. It's definitely worth a watch!

Watch: XY Anatomy of a Boy Documentary

In 2009, Danish documentarian Mette Carla Albrechtsen gathered six homosexual young men in the intimate, semi-uncomfortable, setting of a men's locker room to discuss love, life, and sexuality. The guys really open up and some begin interviewing each other in this touching documentary. Initially filmed at the Nation Film School of Denmark in 2009, it made the Festival rounds in 2011 and 2012. This is a really charming and touching look into the private lives of some very interesting twenty somethings. The 29 minute run time flies by quickly. This is worth a half hour of your time.

Watch: Straight Guys Documentary Trailer - Film Debuts at Toronto's DOC NOW Festival on June 4th!

“Straight-Guy Porn” is a wildly popular subgenre of online amateur pornography that features supposedly heterosexual men having sex with other men for a gay male audience. Why do some gay men prefer to watch sex between two heterosexual men? Where does this desire come from? Is it innate or is it learned? And why would men who identify as straight choose to perform in gay porn? Straight Guys follows filmmaker Daniel Laurin on his journey to answer these questions and reconcile his own relationship to this type of pornography. Daniel speaks to porn historians, porn theorists, porn producers and the performers themselves.

Straight Guys is a lighthearted look at a very real and pressing set of questions. As children and teenagers get
more and more of their information from the Internet, pornography has become an increasingly prevalent source of sexual education. It is an even more influential resource for gay/bisexual/questioning teens, who have very few examples of gay sexuality in mainstream media. This film uses Straight-Guy Porn as an entry point into deeper questions about gay desire in a very straight world.

Director Daniel Laurin further explains his drive to make the doc:

For some reason, the content I gravitated to was Straight-Guy Porn. Was simply because it was popular at the time? Did it speak to a desire that was already present in me or did it create it? What effects, if any, did viewing this very specific subgenre of pornography in my formative years have on my sexual and social development? 

These are the questions I hope to answer, and are my motivation behind undertaking this project. Though it isn’t talked about openly, it is a genre most gay men around my age are aware of, and it’s either a turn-on for them or it’s not. I’d like to know why that is.

Straight Guys is playing on June 4 as a part of the DOC NOW Festival in Toronto. Full details about the festival and screening times can be found at docnow.ca. If you live anywhere near there, you should probably go.

Watch: Caught Inside - The Taboo of Being a Gay Surfer

The Australian Special Broadcasting Service/The Feed shared their terrific gay surfer mini-documentary on Vimeo and YouTube yesterday! Filmmakers Gabriel Virata and Miles Bence sat down with three gay surfers who have all recently come out and all worry that homosexuality in surfing is still a taboo. Among them, former professional competitive surfer Dave Wakefield. Watch it. It's seven minutes well spent.

Watch: Limited Partnership Documentary to Premiere at LA Film Festival in June 2014!

Never before has a movie trailer left me feeling so outraged. Limited Partnership looks to be one of the most astonishingly emotional and completely engrossing documentaries that has ever been made. It shows the struggle of one of the first legally married couples in the US, all the way back in 1975, to gain legal recognition from the government. Their fight became the very first federal lawsuit seeking equal treatment for a same-sex marriage in U.S. history.

The documentary will make its official premiere at the 2014 Los Angeles Film Festival this June. It has also been chosen by PBS to be part of the 2014/2015 Independent Lens series, tentatively airing in June of 2015. Be sure to watch the trailer below.

Here's the official synopsis:

Limited Partnership is the love story between Filipino-American Richard Adams and his Australian husband, Tony Sullivan. In 1975, thanks to a courageous county clerk in Boulder, CO, Richard and Tony were one of the first same-sex couples in the world to be legally married. Richard immediately filed for a green card for Tony based on their marriage. But unlike most heterosexual married couples who easily file petitions and obtain green cards, Richard received a denial letter from the Immigration and Naturalization Service stating, “You have failed to establish that a bona fide marital relationship can exist between two faggots.” Outraged at the tone, tenor and politics of this letter and to prevent Tony’s impending deportation, the couple

sued the U.S. government. This became the first federal lawsuit seeking equal treatment for a same-sex marriage in U.S. history.

Over four decades of legal challenges, Richard and Tony figured out how to maintain their sense of humor, justice and whenever possible, their privacy. Their personal tale parallels the history of the LGBT marriage and immigration equality movements, from the couple signing their marriage license in Colorado, to the historic U.S. Supreme Court rulings on gay marriage in June 2013. Limited Partnership celebrates Richard and Tony’s long path towards justice and citizenship as they challenge the traditional definitions of “spouse” and “family.” This tenacious story of love, marriage and immigration equality is as precedent setting as it is little known until now.

Richard and Tony’s personal journey is set against 40 years of historical and political clashes. These critical moments in history are explored through the use of television news clips, newspaper headlines, radio announcements, Tony and Richard’s personal photos and letters, interviews, and animated graphics. Through artful juxtaposition, these sequences dynamically contrast Richard and Tony’s personal battle with the evolution of America’s values, the LGBT and mainstream marriage equality movement, and modifications in U.S. immigration policy.

img src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/pidgets/pinit_fg_en_round_red_32.png" />