January: Paris is Burning (71 Minutes) The Aggressives (73 minutes)
Made in the late 1980s the award-winning Paris is Burning ignited audiences and critics across the country and all over the world with record-breaking box office performances. This documentary takes an honest, humorous, and surprisingly poignant peek into one of America's overlooked subcultures: the world of the urban drag queen. It's a parallel dimension of bizarre beauty, where "houses" vie like gangs for turf and reputation, only instead of street-fighting, they vogue their way down makeshift catwalks in competitive "balls." The only rule of the ballroom: be real. An unblinking behind-the-scenes story of fashion-obsessed New Yorkers who created "voguing" and drag balls, this world-within-a-world is instantly familiar, filled with ambitions, desires, and yearnings that reflect America itself. In surprisingly candid interviews, you discover the grace, strength, and humor it takes to be gay, black, and poor in a straight, rich, white world. You'll meet young transsexual "cover girls," street hustlers saving up for the big operation, and aging drag divas reminiscing about the bygone days of sequins, feathers, and Marilyn Monroe.
The Aggressives
A striking and illuminating documentary explores and exposes the secret subculture of New York lesbians living as "aggressives." Often mistaken for men, these women range from pretty tomboys to the blatantly butch, boldly creating their own identities outside of society's established sexual categories. Stripped of pretense, they lead us to fashion shoots and prison cells to reveal their work lives, love lives and social lives, including the underground "ball" scene where lesbians compete for lead "AG" status. The resulting documentary is the culmination of five years spent uncovering the "no apologies" lifestyle of six self-defined “aggressives” as they define their dreams, share their most intimate secrets and reveal their deepest fears. The female counterpart to Paris is Burning, this heartfelt all-access film exposes the AG community in all its unabashed, rough-edged glory and explores its impact on gender identity in the modern world.
February: Cancelled for Mardi Gras
March: The Order of Myths
The first Mardi Gras in America was celebrated in Mobile, Alabama in 1703. In 2—7 it is still racially segregated. Filmmaker Margaret Brown, herself a daughter of Mobile, escorts us into the parallel hearts of the city’s two carnivals. With unprecedented access, she traces the exotic world of secret mystic societies and centuries-old traditions and pageantry; diamond-encrusted crowns, voluminous, hand-sewn gowns, surreal masks, and enormous paper mache floats. Against this opulent backdrop, she uncovers a tangled web of historical violence and power dynamics, elusive forces that keep this hallowed tradition organized along enduring color lines.
April: La Vie en Rose (141 minutes)
Picturehouse and HBO Films present a critically-acclaimed biopic about the legendary international singing icon Edith Piaf, whose voice and talent captivated the world. Starring award-winner Marion Cotillard in an astonishing performance, the film is a portrait of a remarkable artist born into poverty who survived using the only gift she had—her voice. Piaf’s tragic life was a constant battle to sing and survive, to live and love, with no regrets. Director Olivier Dahan's powerful biographical film begins with Piaf's stay in a brothel as a young girl. Left to the care of her grandmother after her father pulls her away from a narcissistic mother, Piaf undergoes significant health problems and grows up to sing on the street in lieu of outright prostitution. The film is never less than interesting, with a fascinating cast of characters from Piaf’s life: there's the impresario (Gerard Depardieu) who recognizes Piaf's great but raw talent only to have a run-in with the criminal element around her, and the heavyweight fighter (Marcel Cerdan) who becomes the love of Piaf's life but can't be with her; but the lead performance by Cotillard is astonishing.
May: Almost Myself: Reflections on Mending & Transcending Gender (82 minutes)
This award winning documentary (and a chapter in Tom Murray's easygoing exploration of lesbian, gay, transgendered and bisexual issues) tells just a few of the stories of the struggle to “mend and transcend gender.” After finding a most unusual Web site that was seeking funds to help reverse a sex change, Murray set out on a cross country journey to explore a small part of the vastly diverse transgender community. Neither militant nor "objective," and without a shred of pretension, Murray admits he is interviewing a limited range of people who he finds “almost like myself" (white, over 40, and labeled male at birth). He elicits remarkable candor in his subjects, illuminating a wide spectrum of choices and lifestyles. What happens with a young Gay man, struggling not only with his sexuality but also with gender, decides to have surgery to become a female, and later decides to return to being a Gay man again? Can someone live their life full time as a female, but still have male anatomy? These are just some of the stories told in this fascinating, poignant, informative (some may say controversial) documentary.
June: Soldier’s Girl
This film is based on the true story of Private Barry Winchell, a 21 year old soldier beaten to death in his army barracks because of his love affair with a transgendered nightclub singer. The heterosexual Winchell surprises even himself when he decides to date a vulnerable pre-op transsexual. But as the relationship grows, it infuriates Winchell’s mentally unstable roommate, who incites a fellow soldier to murder Winchell for being a “fag” and a “deviant.” The film is not only a scathing indictment of the codified machismo that permeates and drives military life, but also of the homophobia that inevitably attends such ideological systems. But, mainly, the film is a tender story of a love that transcended boundaries.
July: Licensed to Kill
A documentary from Oscar nominated filmmaker Arthur Dong. In this two-time Sundance Award winner, Dong, known for his intensely compassionate and wonderfully crafted stories, takes the viewer on a frightening journey into the minds of men whose contempt for homosexuality has led them to murder. Attacked himself in 1977 by gay bashers, Dong confronts killers of gay men face-to-face and asks them directly: "Why did you do it?" This is a graphic film --but not gratuitously so -- as the camera looks unflinchingly at actual gay bashings, crime scenes, murderers' confessions, and graphic evidence from police files. The documentary ties together many films in this series through the stories of seven convicted killers: a young man who killed as a means of "self defense" from alleged sexual advances, a religious self-loathing serial killer wrestling with his own same-sex desires, an abuse victim sho feared losing his "manhood," an army sergeant angry over gays in the military, and a self-described "homeboy" looking for easy prey. Likewise, these same stories illustrate the false ideologies that must be dismantled if this senseless violence is to end. Please note that both the content and the images documented in this film are deeply disturbing. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.
August: Normal
An official selection at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, this HBO Films production adapted by Jane Anderson from her acclaimed play mixes humor, drama, and tenderness in telling the story of a seemingly "normal" Midwestern factory worker who stuns his family and community by revealing he wants a sex change operation.
Roy Applewood's outrageous news shocks and angers Irma, his wife of 25 years. Despite his insistence that he wants the family to stay together, she kicks him out of the house.
Their adolescent daughter takes the news in stride, as she is discovering the awkwardness of her own burgeoning sexuality. However, nothing in his career as a rock roadie has prepared the couple's grown son for dealing with his father's decision.As, the family struggles to understand Roy's decision, he and Irma discover that love can transcend both the genders we're born with and the genders we choose. —HBO Films
September: When the Levees Broke
Directed by Spike Lee, this intimate, heart-rending portrait of New Orleans in the wake of the destruction tells the heartbreaking personal stories of those who endured this harrowing ordeal and survived to tell the tale of misery, despair and triumph.The film also looks at a community that has been through hell and back, surviving death, devastation and disease at every turn. Yet, somehow, amidst the ruins, the people of New Orleans are finding new hope and strength as the city rises from the ashes, buoyed by their own resilience and a rich cultural legacy."New Orleans is fighting for its life," says Lee. "These are not people who will disappear quietly - they're accustomed to hardship and slights, and they'll fight for New Orleans. This film will showcase the struggle for New Orleans by focusing on the profound loss, as well as the indomitable spirit of New Orleaneans." —HBO Films
