New Queer Visions: Seeing is Believing

Fourteen-year-old Mo is a lonely, sensitive boy whose hunger for the rant and banter of buddies makes him prone to tread dangerous territories. He idolizes his handsome older brother, Rashid, a charismatic, well-respected member of a local gang, whose drug dealing enables “Rash” to provide for his family. Aching to be seen as a tough guy himself, Mo takes a job that unlocks a fateful turn of events and forces the brothers to confront their inner demons. It turns out that hate is easy. It is love and understanding that take real courage.

A filmmaker talks about his work and love life with an unseen friend behind the camera. We also watch four of his short films.

Jared, the son of a Baptist pastor in a small American town, is outed to his parents at age 19. Jared is faced with an ultimatum: attend a gay conversion therapy program – or be permanently exiled and shunned by his family, friends, and faith.

A Brooklyn teenager juggles conflicting identities and risks friendship, heartbreak, and family in a desperate search for sexual expression.

At a birthday party in 1968 New York, a surprise guest and a drunken game leave seven gay friends reckoning with unspoken feelings and buried truths.

Sean is taken to a motel and is given a prostitute for his 18th birthday by his father. He must sleep with her to "fix" his questionable homosexuality. "Pretty Boy" is a coming of age story of a young bullied teen, Sean, struggling with his sexuality and the hardships of high school. After his father finds some questionable magazines in his room, this devout Christian will go to any lengths to get his son to find the light and "perform" the way a man should. Sean is introduced to Katie, a prostitute that understands the stigmas of modern society and helps him see the true light that is within him.

When Gabriel, a 7-year-old Chinese kid who loves ballet, becomes friends with Rob, another Chinese kid from school, Rob’s dad gets suspicious about Gabriel's feminine behavior and decides to intervene.

In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.

A group of gay friends spend summer weekends together at a lakeside house in upstate New York. As the season progresses and secrets begin to surface, the complex relationships within the group are sometimes strained and sometimes strengthened.

A decade after the death of an American TV star, a young actor reminisces about the written correspondence he once shared with the former, as well as the impact those letters had on both their lives.

A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.

A sensitive young man recalls his time in boarding school when the only person who seemed compassionate towards him was his housemaster's wife.

A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.

Biographical drama based on the last 20 years of Crisp's life. The literary figure and gay iconoclast emigrated to New York in 1981 and lived there until his death. The film observes Crisp in both his public and private lives, from his seemingly cavalier response to the outbreak of AIDS to his tender relationship with his friend Patrick Angus and his own response to growing old.

When a change of circumstances leaves Miriam unable to pay her college tuition, she makes a surprising decision: to start performing in adult films, using the pseudonym Belle Knox. Miriam lies to her family and her friends at school, keeping her double life a secret. But soon rumours spread and Miriam becomes the subject of vicious online attacks and unwanted attention. Miriam fights back: she talks to the media, saying her new line of work empowers her as a feminist. But her confident stand has unintended consequences. Miriam is shunned by her conservative family and her colleagues in the adult film world. One impulsive decision has quickly spiralled out of control - and Miriam's problems are just beginning.

94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.

Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.

Davey Gordon, a New York City boxer at the end of his career, falls for dancer Gloria Price. However, their budding relationship is interrupted by Gloria's violent boss, Vincent Rapallo, who has eyes for Gloria. The two decide to skip town, but before they can, Vincent and his thugs abduct Gloria, and Davey is forced to search for her among the most squalid corners of the city, with his enemy hiding in the shadows.

A nightmarish evening unfolds for neighbors David and Robert when they accidentally hit a woman on her bike and flee the scene. While David is increasingly plagued by feelings of guilt, Robert shows no remorse and becomes overbearing and possessive.

Harold is celebrating a birthday, and his friend Michael has drafted some other friends to help commemorate the event. As the evening progresses, an unexpected guest shows up, the alcohol flows, the knives come out, and dormant and unspoken emotions are unleashed.

A bunch of friends are celebrating the birthday of one of them when they decide to play a joke on him. None of them could imagine the consequences that would befall them.

Jamie Graham, a privileged English boy, is living in Shanghai when the Japanese invade and force all foreigners into prison camps. Jamie is captured with an American sailor, who looks out for him while they are in the camp together. Even though he is separated from his parents and in a hostile environment, Jamie maintains his dignity and youthful spirit, providing a beacon of hope for the others held captive with him.

In 1970s Rome, a casual encounter between Enea and Pietro at a movie theater turns into an unforgettable romance — until destiny pulls them apart.

Sophia Pinsky seems like a functioning adult. But when she loses her girlfriend and her grandfather in the same day and moves back in with her authoritarian Russian grandmother, Marina, everything she thought she’d escaped is waiting to welcome her back with open arms. Thrilled to have Sophia under her influence again, and obsessed with finding her a proper (male) partner, Marina conspires to marry her off to Trevor, a nice Jewish boy Sophia has known since they were in diapers. After the date with him is a dud, Sophia finds her way to a weekly open mic night, where on a whim she gets on stage and discovers there’s actually an audience for her Queer-Russian-Jewish-American sense of humor. Everything comes to a head at the family Shabbat dinner when Sophia and Trevor try to humiliate Marina by pretending to have fallen for each other, unaware that Marina is planning her own announcement.

Toni and Emma are brother and sister who owns a stable farm. Ramon and his son, Aaron works for them. Toni is openly gay and loves to party, Emma has a crush on Aaron who is a closeted gay who is afraid that his father might find out, but his father also has a secret.

Before disappearing in the Mojave Desert, Robbie Zagorac captured love, life and heartbreak in a video diary.

A married man calls the wrong number for phone-sex and winds up being stalked by a psychotic man.

Inside a drab middle school in 1992, a sexually-confused eighth-grader attempts to regain his dignity after being bullied by a sex-obsessed 'cool kid' whom he privately fantasizes about.

A gay high school student throws a swinging prom party in the hopes of finally wooing the football captain - but when popular kids start turning up dead, the partygoers discover a slasher killer amongst the student body!

After the suicide of his best friend and the fire of a local dance called Cromañón, including recitals, illegal parties in an abandoned warehouse and high school, a year passes by in the life of Zabo who writes everything he feels and lives in his blog, "Memories of a teenager".

A young gay, neurotic and ex-religious art student goes into a spin with the surprise visit of an eccentric childhood friend.

Beau, an emerging artist, is about to unveil her latest installation. Her girlfriend Paloma is a devoted supporter. Her final breakthrough hinges on the success of this piece, and soon this pressure causes a rift in the two women's relationship.

A father pays his son a visit after years of conflict and turns up in the middle of his house move. The son, Vincent, reacts violently to that intrusion. Emotionally weakened, the father involuntarily reveals the true reason of his visit, which revives the tension between them. Within a few minutes, the anger, the memories and the crossed looks move the two men deeply.

Petra von Kant is a successful fashion designer -- arrogant, caustic, and self-satisfied. She mistreats Marlene (her secretary, maid, and co-designer). Enter Karin, a 23-year-old beauty who wants to be a model. Petra falls in love with Karin and invites her to move in.

A drama film based on the life of Mario Mieli, a leading figure in the Italian gay movement of the 1970s.

Sep learns how to navigate high-school life.

Co-directed by Blackwood and Julien, the first full-length feature film by Sankofa Film and Video offers a radical and necessary interrogation into what constitutes 'post-colonial' identity at a time of political and social restlessness in Britain. Set within an isolated desert landscape contrasted with recognizable scenes of the intensity of family life, this vanguard work demonstrates the richness and variety of the black experience; it is a poetic and hard-hitting commentary on the complexities of race, gender and sexuality.

When Chris arrives at the village of T'boli in lake Sebu, South Cotabato, he thought he has left his dark recent past behind. He is working on commission as a video documentarist to make a profile on the women T'boli and their changing views on multiple marriages. The most affluent men, called Datu, marry more than once and each time pays dowry to the family of the women they marry. When a young T'boli woman, Ngapon, tells Chris that she wants to be free from a marriage that was set by her parents and to go to Manila, Chris begins to confront waht he left in the city. Like the proud Datu with many wives, Chris has Denver, a bronze skinned lover in Manila, who is proud of his relationships. Denver lives with Chris in an apartment as partners yet he still goes into sexual and emotional relationships with other men. Ngapon's quest for freedom becomes Chris journey to a very sad dark past. - Written by Anonymous

A tense love triangle unfolds as You struggles with his affair, questioning his identity and desires while caught between two men who change his life forever.

A stone-broke gay actor and a privileged screw-up with a failing business cross paths on a winter night and join forces in a quest around London to find a meaning to their miserable lives, but when their unlikely connection turns into something deeper, fears and demons from their past come to jeopardise the whole mission.