Notes on Vanishing

An investigation of how Hollywood's fabled stories have deeply influenced how Americans feel about transgender people, and how transgender people have been taught to feel about themselves.

Harris Glenn Milstead, aka Divine (1945-1988) was the ultimate outsider turned underground hero. Spitting in the face of the status quos of body image, gender identity, sexuality, and preconceived notions of beauty, Divine succeeded in becoming an internationally recognized icon, recording artist, and character actor of stage and screen. Glenn went from the often-mocked, schoolyard fat kid to underdog royalty, standing up for millions of gay men and women, drag queens and punk rockers, and countless other socially ostracized misfits and freaks. With a completely committed in-your-face style, he blurred the line between performer and personality, and revolutionized pop culture.

This searing investigative work shadows a group of activists risking unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ program raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic. Unfettered access and a remarkable approach to protecting anonymity exposes this under-reported atrocity–and an extraordinary group of people confronting evil.

This raucous journey into the heart of democracy captures an unusual rite of passage: 1,100 teenage boys from across Texas coming together to build a representative government from the ground up.

Vanessa Guillen was 20 years old when she was found murdered at a US Army base. Rather than submit to silence, her family fought for justice and change.

In a warehouse in the heart of Los Angeles, a dwindling handful of devoted craftspeople maintain more than 80,000 student musical instruments, the largest remaining workshop in America of its kind. Meet four unforgettable characters whose broken-and-repaired lives have been dedicated to bringing so much more than music to the schoolchildren of this city.

Just two years away from turning 30, participants in Michael Apted's documentary series are facing serious questions of identity and purpose, wondering whether they've found their place in the world.

A documentary about ten very different lives connected by having appeared onscreen wearing masks or helmets in Star Wars.

Captured during Billie Eilish's sold-out world tour, a concert experience from one of the most celebrated and successful artists of her generation, presented in immersive 3D.

Musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother and her beloved dog.

An inside look at one of the most anticipated movie sequels ever with James Cameron and cast.

49 Up is the seventh film in a series of landmark documentaries that began 42 years ago when UK-based Granada's World in Action team, inspired by the Jesuit maxim "Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man," interviewed a diverse group of seven-year-old children from all over England, asking them about their lives and their dreams for the future. Michael Apted, a researcher for the original film, has returned to interview the "children" every seven years since, at ages 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and now again at age 49.In this latest chapter, more life-changing decisions are revealed, more shocking announcements made and more of the original group take part than ever before, speaking out on a variety of subjects including love, marriage, career, class and prejudice.

A string of threatening emails escalates into a revenge plot involving a newly married US marshal and his ex-girlfriend.

Marlon Riggs, with assistance from other gay Black men, especially poet Essex Hemphill, celebrates Black men loving Black men as a revolutionary act. The film intercuts footage of Hemphill reciting his poetry, Riggs telling the story of his growing up, scenes of men in social intercourse and dance, and various comic riffs, including a visit to the "Institute of Snap!thology," where men take lessons in how to snap their fingers: the sling snap, the point snap, the diva snap.

The film follows adventurer Jeff Johnson as he retraces the epic 1968 journey of his heroes Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins to Patagonia.

An atmospheric essay, which is an alternative version of Count Dracula, a film directed by Jess Franco in 1970; a ghostly narration between fiction and reality.

Explore the evolution of Buzz Lightyear from toy to human in the making of Pixar’s Lightyear. Dive into the origin and cultural impact of everyone’s favorite Space Ranger, the art of designing a new “human Buzz,” and the challenges faced by the Lightyear crew along the way.

Matt Walsh's controversial doc challenges radical gender ideology through provocative interviews and humor.

In 1999, Internet entrepreneur Josh Harris recruits dozens of young men and women who agree to live in underground apartments for weeks at a time while their every movement is broadcast online. Soon, Harris and his girlfriend embark on their own subterranean adventure, with cameras streaming live footage of their meals, arguments, bedroom activities, and bathroom habits. This documentary explores the role of technology in our lives, as it charts the fragile nature of dot-com economy.

SEDUCED AND ABANDONED combines acting legend Alec Baldwin with director James Toback as they lead us on a troublesome and often hilarious journey of raising financing for their next feature film. Moving from director to financier to star actor, the two players provide us with a unique look behind the curtain at the world's biggest and most glamourous film festival, shining a light on the bitter-sweet relationship filmmakers have with Cannes and the film business. Featuring insights from directors Martin Scorsese, 'Bernando Bertolucci' and Roman Polanski; actors Ryan Gosling and Jessica Chastain and a host of film distribution luminaries.

This short experimental diary film reveals my struggles with mental illness in my adolescence and queer adulthood while simultaneously reflecting upon my joyous childhood experiences. I investigate when and how my depression began and explain that my relationships with the people I love have supported me through my harder times. The film incorporates footage shot over May and June 2023 and archival home videos. Overall, I aim to resolve my "growing pains" through the medium of diary film and by reconnecting with my younger self.

A short documentary and character study about a woman's complex relationship with religion and family.

A video project meant to highlight the human cost in Palestine.

Like at the New Year’s Eve, showers of colourful light cut through the darkness. While fireworks dissolve into nothing after a thunderous sound, shattered glass leaves material artifact. Sharp pieces then become a reminder of the real track that fireworks leave in the sky.

fifteen zero three nineteenth of january two thousand sixteen explores how everyday routines and gestures are transformed when a mother loses her child in the violence impacting Swedish outskirts since the early 2000s. The film resists simplistic media depictions of the suburbs and shows how a home can hold both mourning and the mobilization of women to fight for their own and others' children.

Over the course of 10 months, a camera travels to Buenos Aires, Argentina and Hanover, Germany to meet with Magalí, María Belén, Ivana and Carla, the founding members of the Archivo De La Memoria Trans Argentina, the first existing Trans Archive in the world. Taking the shape of a photo-novel, the documentary not only recounts the founding members lives as trans women under the Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983), the AIDS epidemy, state repression and mass assassinations but also years of fighting for their rights, sorority and the exaltation of life and laughter in times of death. Filming each one of them is filming them embracing their new role as curators, archivists and historians while a collection of 7,000 photos goes through the filter of their memories.

Four Spanish-language shorts about the importance and complexity of people's perception from award winning directors. Stories of identity, misconceptions, regrets, dreams and love are told in this diverse collection. Includes: Tenants [Inquilinos] (2018); My Brother [Mi hermano] (2015); Guillermo on the Roof [Guillermo en el tejado] (2018); You Are Not a Woman [Usted no es mujer] (2018).

The basis of the experimental film Sky Spirits are real-life shots of fireworks. The authors of the film have collected these shots from the year 2001. to 2008. The experiment explores the ultimate limits of fireworks as sources of light, showing this through real-life dynamic light patters which are led through video processors, resulting in chromatically rich animated samples. The material is "laboratory" processed and then formed into a film unit, while respecting the dramaturgy of fireworks. The original sound was used, which was, of course, subsequently processed, too. The whole work process is a kind of "homage to the tape" because the entire work is completely recorded and realised on digital video tapes, without using any kind of computer program.

After concluding the now-legendary public access TV series, The Pain Factory, Michael Nine embarked on a new and more subversive public access endeavor: a collaboration with Scott Arford called Fuck TV. Whereas The Pain Factory predominantly revolved around experimental music performances, Fuck TV was a comprehensive and experiential audio-visual presentation. Aired to a passive and unsuspecting audience on San Francisco’s public access channel from 1997 to 1998, each episode of Fuck TV was dedicated to a specific topic, combining video collage and cut-up techniques set to a harsh electronic soundtrack. The resultant overload of processed imagery and visceral sound was unlike anything presented on television before or since. EPISODES: Yule Bible, Cults, Riots, Animals, Executions, Static, Media, Haterella (edited version), Self Annihilation Live, Electricity.

"Bagong Buhay" is a short experimental film that dispels the common belief that packing up and moving to a new place will magically improve one's quality of life. The film challenges this presumption by portraying two contrasting ways of life through objects and locations, encouraging viewers to think critically about the complexities of what makes a better life. In the Philippines, it's believed that relocating to a new area will bring about positive changes in one's existence. True satisfaction is a complex and multifaceted notion, and "Bagong Buhay" encourages us to ponder that relocating to a new place is not a surefire way to attain it.

A documentary on Queercore, the cultural and social movement that began as an offshoot of punk and was distinguished by its discontent with society's disapproval of the gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender communities.

Kalú Kariú, a trans artist and poet from northern Brazil, reflects on how “saudade”, an untranslatable feeling of profound nostalgic longing, becomes a powerful source of creation. After eight years away from his roots, Kalú invites us into a space where memory, distance and identity intertwine, and art is born from absence.

Thirty worlds in less than a blink and oh-so many more...

An investigation of how Hollywood's fabled stories have deeply influenced how Americans feel about transgender people, and how transgender people have been taught to feel about themselves.

Memories shape my identity and challenge my soul and body to confront what I am or strive not to be.

Working completely outside the mainstream, the wildly prolific, visionary Stan Brakhage made more than 350 films over a half century. Challenging all taboos in his exploration of “birth, sex, death, and the search for God,” he has turned his camera on explicit lovemaking, childbirth, even autopsy. Many of his most famous works pursue the nature of vision itself and transcend the act of filming. Some, including the legendary Mothlight, were made without using a camera at all, as he pioneered the art of making images directly on film, by drawing, painting, and scratching.