GAY DOCUMENTARIES

Before the 30th anniversary, Vancouver's Gay Pride Parade director examines relevance of Pride celebrations internationally. He travels to places where Pride is steeped in protest to experience the powerful oppression that still exists. Pride is more than a parade, it's a giant step on the road to equality.

Bill Maher's take on the current state of world religion.

Men, most of them naked, talk about their penises. The men range from 17 to 70+, all are from the U.S. of diverse races. Several are artists or performers. Some are gay, others straight; two are transgender. One is paralyzed below the chest. The interviews are edited around themes: discovery, early sexual experiences, masturbation, size, oral sex, libido, performance, disease and maladies, maturity. A lexicographer discusses language, especially slang; a few archival educational-film clips divide the topics. Images and stories mix with facts and philosophical reflection. The usually private becomes public.

A chronicle of gay culture in New York during the post-Stonewall, pre-AIDs era.

A documentary that follows Hole drummer Patty Schemel as she struggles with fame and addiction during the band's 1994-1995 world tour and after.

An exploration of the intersection between religion and homosexuality in the U.S. and how the religious right has used its interpretation of the Bible to stigmatize the gay community.

A documentary surveying the various Hollywood screen depictions of homosexuals and the attitudes behind them throughout the history of North American film.

A study in the duality of man. Even after thousands and thousands of years, mankind still can't get along with each other, the animals, or the environment, despite the advent of science, literature, technology, philosophy and religion.

A documentary of the successful career and assassination of San Francisco's first elected gay city supervisor.

In Uganda, a new bill threatens to make homosexuality punishable by death. David Kato - Uganda's first openly gay man - and his fellow activists work against the clock to defeat the legislation while combating vicious persecution in their daily lives. But no one, not even the filmmakers, is prepared for the brutal murder that shakes the movement to its core and sends shock waves around the world.

Historian Klaus Müller interviews survivors of the Nazi persecution of homosexuals because of the German Penal Code of 1871, Paragraph 175.

A scorching indictment of the Mormon Church's historic involvement in the promotion & passage of California's Proposition 8 and the Mormon religion's secretive, decades-long campaign against LGBT human rights.

Malcolm Ingram introduces us to gay men who dig big dudes who are stockier and hairier than the airbrushed ideal served by up lifestyle magazines and underwear ads.

The outrageous story of 1970s porn icon Jack Wrangler, and how he rose to the top of the gay, and then straight, adult film industry.

Los Angeles in the year 2005: 19-year-old lads move through an apartment that has been equipped with webcams and looks like some sort of futuristic internet doll's house. Not-quite-so-young men fulfil their sexual dreams as protagonists in bareback productions. And, at private sex parties, almost every second guy has either taken part in a porn film or wants to. In 1997, I followed on camera the fortunes of a group of men who had chosen to wok - either artistically or commercially - with their bodies. This footage later become part of my 1998 documentary, SEX/LIFE IN L.A.. I'm still in touch with some of the men in that film, these include: lone battler Kevin Kramer, mature shooting star Cole Tucker, American boy-next-door Matt Bradshaw and friends of the occasional model John Garwood, who died of an overdose in 1998. Some of these men have successful careers behind them, others have left the sex industry altogether. Driven by a sense of adventure or by their narcissism, young men today are still keen to put their own stamp on porn cinema. But the days of a purely non-commercial fulfilment of one's sexual desires has long gone, and the interests of consumers, models and producers no longer coincide. Gay life - like the entire industry - has become something of a profession and is now thoroughly commercialized. Young models begin their sexual careers in internet containers; they enter the business fully aware of their self-exploitation and yet, at the same time, they are somehow unconscious of how they are being exploited. Meanwhile, bareback video producers scout the country in their motorhome on the lookout for new protagonists. But can there be winners in this game? Is there anything left of sex itself? And is there a life after porn?

The story of Vito Russo, founding father of the gay liberation movement, author of "The Celluloid Closet," and vociferous AIDS activist in the 1980s.

Saint of 9/11 presents the turbulent, restless, spiritual and remarkable journey of Father Mychal Judge. Compassionate champion of the needy and forgotten, a beloved Fire Department Chaplain, rousing Irish-American balladeer and iconoclast, Father wrestled with his own private demons while touching others in powerful and miraculous ways. Mychal Judge knew the pain of loss and suffering. He struggled with alcoholism and was an outspoken AA advocate. Father Judge was a gay man who loved his priestly work. Saint of 9/11 portrays Mychal's life as a spiritual adventure and an honest embrace of life, where alcoholism and sexuality were acknowledged. Saint of 9/11 is the story of a life's journey interrupted. Inspired by his life, the documentary embraces Mychal's full humanity.

Inspired by Terrence McNally's Passion Play told through the lens of a young gay Jesus, Corpus Christi: Playing with Redemption follows a group of actors who began production on the play seven years ago in a small church. Within months they suddenly found themselves thrust in the world spotlight touring to international acclaim. The documentary follows the troupe and the playwright sharing their stories with supporters and protesters as they continue their tour across the world to communities where hate and bigotry are much more prevalent. Mirroring the reflections of dialogue in society today, especially in regards to civil rights, marriage equality, HIV/AIDS, and separation of church and state, this production has become a vehicle of change for a community struggling to find its voice. Meanwhile, the company of actors find themselves on a journey that would forever change their lives.

Ten women, most of them in Vancouver or Toronto, talk about being lesbian in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s: discovering the pulp fiction of the day about women in love, their own first affairs, the pain of breaking up, frequenting gay bars, facing police raids, men's responses, and the etiquette of butch and femme roles. Interspersed among the interviews and archival footage are four dramatized chapters from a pulp novel, "Forbidden Love": Laura leaves her hick town and heads for the city, where she meets Mitch in a bar. Sparks fly, and so do laughter and joy. Ann Bannon, one of the writers of those paperback novels about forbidden love, talks about the genre.

Explores the life of Richard Berkowitz, a revolutionary gay S&M sex worker turned AIDS activist in the 1980s, whose incomparable contribution to the invention of safe sex has has never been aptly credited.

101 Rent Boys is shot on location in various motel rooms situated on the length of the Santa Monica Boulevard, and features 101 different hustlers. Although the film features 101 different people, it focuses on the lives (and loves) of a few key men. They have been chosen to reflect the immense diversity of the boys of the Santa Monica Strip. An amazing thing happens when you cross a video camera with award-winning directors, $50 and a hustler. The pieces are slickly grouped to cover certain themes; such as their first john, gay for pay, homelessness, drugs or the reason that they began to work as a rent boy. It also explores the variety of insiders' opinion on subjects such as; how a rent boy should dress, speak, act, think, give head, receive head, increase cash flow, keep safe, walk, eat, smoke, and flirt.

On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the Gay Rights Movement, the film explores the drama, struggle and enduring legacy of the first-ever gay play and subsequent Hollywood movie to successfully reach a mainstream audience. Beloved by some for breaking new ground, and condemned by others for reinforcing gay stereotypes, The Boys in the Band sparked heated controversy that still exists four decades later.

A veteran New York police officer embarks on a harrowing search to find her son, when he disappears under suspicious circumstances in Austria.

A documentary on gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims across the Muslim and Western worlds.

After a lifetime of hiding, Chely Wright becomes the first commercial country music singer to come out as gay, shattering cultural stereotypes within Nashville, her conservative heartland family and, most importantly, within herself. With unprecedented access over a two-year period, including her private video diaries, the film layers Chely's rise to fame while hiding in the late 90's with the execution of her coming out plan, culminating in the exciting moment when she steps into the media glare to reveal she is gay. The film shows both the devastation of internalized homophobia and the transformational power of living an authentic life. The film also documents the conflicting responses from Nashville, the heartland and the LGBT community as Chely Wright prepares for an unknown future.