On June 28th 1969 the New York Police Department conducted a raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. To the surprise of the policemen, the partying bar patrons decided to defend themselves and fought back.
Today, this incident is celebrated in a series of colourful and flamboyant parties in cities all over the world. Everywhere, people are remembering the pioneers of the gay and lesbian movement 45 years ago. Five Days in New York takes the viewers back to the origins of the gay pride movement in New York City.

During the 1960s ID controls at known gay and lesbian bars were conducted all the time, and names were often released to shame the patrons. But the 28th of June 1969 changed the social awareness of the public. From that day on, gays were no longer victims and started to fight back. The Stonewall riots lasted for five days and nights. Five days in New York, that changed the life of gays and lesbians across the world.

In Five Days in New York Stonewall veterans, comrades from the earliest days, as well as activists and allies of the LGBT community talk about their personal experiences. They describe the social climate of the late 1960s, both in New York and the rest of the US, and they proudly talk about how far the equal rights movement of the LGBT community has come today. At the same time, Five Days in New York takes a closer look at what goes on behind the scenes of the New York Pride March, which commemorates the Stonewall riots and is one of the cities greatest parties as well as one of the largest political events in New York City.

Alondra is attractive, poor, an immigrant, a prostitute and transsexual. We come into her life at a critical juncture, the moment she has decided to complete her gender reassignment via a sex change operation. But she needs fast money.

We travel with Alondra from Spain to Thailand where she undergoes complicated surgeries to complete her gender reassignment. And through Alondra’s own self-shot footage, we experience her personal struggle for acceptance both in society and her own family when she flies to New York after being absent for 9 years to see the mother and extended family who knew her only as a boy.

he film explores the internal struggle of a person betrayed by her own body since infancy who makes the radical decision to change genders.

IDFA & BERLIN SELECTIONS.

One hot August afternoon in 1972 John Wojtowicz attempted to rob a Brooklyn branch of the Chase Manhattan bank. An unexpectedly rapid police response prompted Wojtowicz to take eight hostages. Once Wojtowicz revealed that he had committed the robbery to finance the sex change operation of his lover, there was no turning back. A 10 minute robbery degenerated into a 14 hour stand off. Cops, crowds and cameras – the robbery was a spectacle that eventually served as the basis for Sidney Lumet’s 1975 film DOG DAY AFTERNOON.

Of all the accounts as to what took place during those 14 hours, Wojtowicz’s testimonial is the only one missing. After serving time in prison, Wojtowicz was released, taking up residence several blocks from the bank, leading his life in the illuminated shadow of cinematic memories that were not his own.

‘Based on a true story’ is a remarkable journey back in time reconstructing this day in August 1972. Whereas John Wojtowicz wants to star in his own memories, his control over the story slips away when other accounts come to light. With stunning original news footage, clips of the film Dog Day Afternoon, and recollections of both the hostages, the Police, the FBI and John Wojtowicz, this becomes a story of many faces.

In 1969, the patrons of the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village decided to fight back, transforming a routine police raid into three nights of rioting which marked the beginning of the Gay Liberation movement. Before Stonewall examines the historical background to this sudden burst of political energy – from the social experimentation of the Roaring Twenties, to the discovery of the true size of this hidden society during World War II, to the scape-goating of homosexuals during the McCarthy era, to the development of the early homophile rights movement – providing an informative and engaging portrait of the history of homosexual experience in America.

Using filmed recollections and a wealth of archival material (including excerpts from silent-films newsreels and Hollywood musicals), Before Stonewall traces the social, political and cultural development of the gay and lesbian community. As such, the film is not a narrow history of gay civil rights, but the hidden story of a vital American subculture.

Before Stonewall features provocative and humorous interviews with poets Allen Ginsberg and Audre Lorde, historian/playwright Martin Duberman, Native American activist Smilie Hillaire, gay activist Barbara Gittings, Reverend Grant Gallup, novelist Ann Bannon, as well as many other authors psychologists ministers, gay activists, and government officials, who recount the vice squads, witch hunts, censorship and secrecy that have been such a large part of being homosexual.

The film also celebrates the strength of character and courage of those who led their lives with dignity despite widespread social discrimination,fear and prejudice. Whether one is gay or straight or in-between, audiences of all types are sure to find Before Stonewall a remarkable historical record of social change in America.

…..but I was a girl The story of Frieda Belinfante This film tells the story of Frieda Belinfante (1904-1995), a remarkable woman who was the first female conductor to have her own symphony orchestra in Holland and later in Orange County, United States. Controversial, because of her homosexuality she shows a remarkably strong and positive will in everything she does.

Born in a family of musicians in Amsterdam, she joins the resistance during WW II and flees to Switzerland. After the war she moves to the U.S. where she proceeds with her musical career in the Hollywood studios and forms her own symphony orchestra with only Hollywood musicians. The story of her life is told by herself, her older sister Renee, old students and friends, and illustrated by the places where she lived, archive material of her orchestra and some of her most beautiful music.

Does God Love Women? portrays Hilligje Kok, a deeply religious but free spirited woman in Staphorst, a village located in the Dutch “Bible Belt”.

With passion and humor, Hilligje seeks to improve the position of women within her church as well as in the orthodox Christian political party SGP.

But a visit by Hilligje’s gay son Willem brings her off balance. Why did she not show up at his wedding? Hilligje’s well-intended struggle for equality is now putting at risk her friendships, family relationships as well as her position within the congregation.

THE LOVE STORY THAT BROUGHT DOWN DOMA

After 42 years, feisty and delightful lesbian couple Edie and Thea are finally getting married. From the early ’60s to the present day, the tireless community activists persevere through many battles, both personal and political. These two compassionate and brave women are a model of courage and strength that speaks to everyone, of any age. Through this film audiences will recognize that dancing, like loving, can continue at any age, and rediscover the timeless message “Don’t postpone joy”. Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir (The Brandon Teena Story) return with a love story of two remarkable women whose commitment to each other is an inspiration to us all.

Audience Award for Best Documentary Outfest
Audience Award for Best Feature Documentary Skeive Filme
Audience & Director’s Club Award for Best Documentary Reel Pride
Audience Award for Best Independent Feature Documentary Image Out
Docula-Award for Best Documentary Hamburg Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
Audience Choice Award for Best Documentary, Melbourne Queer Film Festival, Australia
Audience Award for Best Documentary and over all Audiences Favorite Film of the Roze Film Dagen Festival, Amsterdam.
Audience Award for Best Documentary, Internationales Frauen Film Festival Dortmund/Köln
Audience Award for Best Documentary, Pink Apple Film Festival in Zürich, Switzerland.
Audience Award for Best Documentary, Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival – presented by HBO
Audience Award for Best Documentary, Connecticut Gay and Lesbian Film Festival
Audience Award and the Jury Award for Best Documentary, QFest, Philadelphia

REVIEW

Chronicling the extraordinary lives of Erika and Klaus Mann, children of author Thomas Mann, Escape to Life presents two talented artists who challenged both social standards and the fascist Nazi government through their outrageous performances. Forced to flee their native Germany, only Erika later returned home.

The voices of Corin and Vanessa Redgrave give this brother-and-sister pair the liveliness for which they were so well known.

A special coverage, by two dutch journalists, of Ukraine’s very first Gay Pride (during the Euro 2012 Championship) that never happened due to extremist threats. The secret route had been leaked and hundreds of members of dangerous anti-gay groups chased gays who were on their way to the Pride. Two of the organizers were hospitalized.

With the world’s gaze fixed upon Ukraine, gays – who have no rights there – felt encouraged to stand up for their rights. It might get even worse when a law against ‘gay propaganda’ passes: (positive) media coverage, support and education of homosexuality will be punishable.

In the documentary ‘Gay meets Girl’ friends and creators Tim (26) and Nicolaas (29) go in search of the boundaries of their own sexuality. They’re both gay, at least, they think so. But how sure are they? What would it be like to experiment with the other sex? Is their sexual identity really as fixed as they think?

‘Gay,’ ‘straight’ or ‘bi’: aren’t these really just labels we use to pigeonhole ourselves, because society expects us to make a choice? Tim decides to step outside his box and tries, for the first time in his life, to have sex with a woman. Through this experiment Tim wants to find out what the boundaries of his sexuality are. Is he as gay as he thinks or are things slightly more complicated?

In the documentary Tim is followed by Nicolaas as he prepares to lose his straight virginity. Tim takes part in a workshop with a sex coach, who introduces him to female sexuality. According to her it’s all about making real contact with the other person, and an emotional connection trumps sexual preference. Science writer Asha ten Broeke also has an unconventional view of sexuality: Referring to the animal world, she states that everyone is bi.

Nicolaas and Tim ponder their own sexuality in the documentary, and how it is defined. When they find a girl who’s willing to participate in Tim’s experiment, the guys travel to Paris, where she lives. Are the boundaries of Tim’s sexuality really as fixed as he always assumed?

Documentary producer/director Joseph Lovett focuses his lens on the unbridled sexual passion and exploration that marked the twelve years from Stonewall (1969) to the first reported cases of AIDS (1981). With access to a filmic and photographic treasure trove of erotic life on New York’s West Side Piers, trucks, bars, dance clubs, baths and beaches, Lovett’s cast of Storytellers (including AIDS activist and writer Larry Kramer and erotic photographer Tom Bianchi, and others) takes us from the remarkably repressed pre-Stonewall period to an era of sexual excess unparalleled since ancient Rome.

Straightforward, funny and titillating at the same time, they tell their stories with remarkable wit, humor and perspective. For younger people – those who became sexually active after the age of AIDS – this film may be a startling revelation of what everyday life was like when American youth were cutting loose from Puritanical values and ascribing to the watchword of the time “if it feels good, do it.”

SELECTED FOR THE 2007 BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL

HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU, BOY tells the story of the coming-out of gay and lesbian cinema and the slowly developing self-confidence of its makers and their audience – a self-confidence which has been characterised in recent times by films which have received awards at renowned film festivals like Berlin and Venice or even the Academy Awards in Hollywood. Gay and lesbian films have had to break through sociological barriers in order to assert themselves and to eventually realise their own coming-out to a broader audience. This film will deal with these and many other important films of the last few decades. Plenty of clips form international productions and behind the scenes footage will complement the interviews with the talent from behind and in front of the camera – with Stephen Frears, Gus Van Sant, Rosa von Praunheim, Tilda Swinton, John Waters, Geneviere Turner and many others!

The last offspring of a powerful German family: Arndt von Bohlen und Halbach – the last Krupp.

Unwilling to fulfill the expectations of both his family and their company, this homosexual industrialist’s son waived his inheritance of around 3,5 billion D-Mark. With an annual settlement of two million D-Mark Arndt withdrew into another world. He remained a lonely man his whole life. His lifestyle became legendary in the 1960s and 70s, degenerated into a ridiculed outsider. Neither a documentary nor a feature film and set in the late 70s.

Best Documentary Feature Film at the 2016 Sydney Film Festival

2016 Nomination for the European Film Academy Docunentary Competition

Growing up as a small town boy who feels like a girl, Graham is an outsider who can see only one solution – to become “Ashleigh”. Ashleigh’s greatest desire is to be an attractive woman “with beautiful big breasts that a man would love.” She insists that she’s both heterosexual and a virgin.

But just as Ashleigh starts to really change her appearance, she also reveals her inner conflict and confusion about what she’s actually doing. Ashleigh dreads being identified as transgender and divulges that her ultimate drive is simply to become “normal”.

James Dean – alias Jim Stark – crouching on the roadside, giggling childishly into himself. James Dean – alias Cal – lying in a corn field watching the fruit grow. James Dean – alias James Dean – the collar of his coat turned up in New York: Images which have collaborated on building a myth – the image of eternal and misunderstood youth. Unlike Marlon Brando, the proletarian rebel with identifiable goals, James Dean was the timeless and androgynous youthful rebel. His death on the Interstate 46 leads us back to 1950s America, a time when youth was re-interpreted all anew.

The USA was looking for its profile: While the McCarthy-hysteria was reactivating the tough patriar-chal America, the internal social fabric was determining its course for “Big Mama“. All of this followed a general “psychologicalisation” of all spheres of life: Authenticity, truth and rebellion turned into values attributed to youth and also revolutionised the Hollywood studios. James Dean played himself – but like no one else before he also produced himself. It was through this that he was turned into an icon of a media created youth culture, the shadow of which is still hanging over us today.

Excerpts of James Dean’s three films, behind the scenes footage, archive from 1950s America and original photos will merge with the newly shot material tracking the phenomenon James Dean in present day New York, Fairmount and California.

A portrait of the late great jazz vocalist. Produced in association with Channel Four UK and La Sept, France.

Theatrical premiere at the ICA, London, and Film Forum, New York City. Broadcast in France, Britain, Germany and Yugoslavia.

In the first quarter of the 20th century Paris was the undisputed cultural capital of the world. It was also the meeting place for a new generation of independent women, who literally flocked to the West Bank of Paris and made it their home. Authors Colette, Djuna Barnes and Getrude Stein joined painters Romaine Brookes and Marie Laurencin, photographers Bernice Abbot and Gilsele Freund, publishers and booksellers Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier and journalist Janet Flanner and together they created a now legendary community.

Mark and Erik have been together for ten years, and they’ve decided it’s time to have kids. But they don’t want to adopt. Is there a woman out there willing to serve as a surrogate mother and help them realize their dream?

PATERNAL INSTINCT chronicles two years in the life of these New Yorkers on their journey to become fathers.
Mark, a computer engineer, and Erik, a land conservationist, choose to pursue parenthood through surrogacy, a process increasingly considered by gay couples as an alternative to adoption.

Placing a “NYC Gay Couple Seeks Surrogate” ad on the Internet, they begin the process of fulfilling their primordial desire to have biological children. Mark and Erik are delighted when they get a response from Wen, a married mother living in rural Maine. At an initial meeting in Boston, they work out the paperwork and payment, kicking off a two-year odyssey that will be filled with anxiety, disappointment and, ultimately, joy.

PATERNAL INSTINCT has been featured at a number of domestic and international film festivals, including the recent Miami Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize. It was directed by Murray Nossel, whose other credits include the Oscar®-nominated short film “Why Can’t We Be a Family Again?”

PATERNAL INSTINCT was produced by Murray Nossel and Craig Harwood; directed by Murray Nossel; edited by Susanne Rostock; director of photography, Edward Marritz; original music composed by Hahn Rowe. For CINEMAX Reel Life: consulting editor, Geoff Bartz; supervising producer, John Hoffman; executive producer, Sheila Nevins.

Academy Award® and Oscar® are registered trademarks and service marks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

There are two reasons to revive interest in the Hollywood star Rock Hudson in 2010: If he had not died of AIDS 25 years ago, it would have been his 85th birthday in November 2010. The film portrays a very male looking gay leading man who had to perform a secret balancing act between the heterosexual Hollywood world and the dark side of closeted sexuality. In fact he was someone who always needed to tell lies. He had to become a very good actor even in real life.

The film includes interviews with his French doctor Dr. Philippe Siou and Dr. Michael Gottlieb, Rock’s American doctor who became the first physician to describe a new disease that would later become known as AIDS, friends like Stockton Briggle and his personal secretary Mark Miller, Yanou Collart, his French PR manager, Armistead Maupin, bestselling author, Richard Dyer, film historian, Robert Hofler, author of the book “The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson”, Richard Anderson and Salome Jens, co-stars of “SECONDS”, Leonard Stern, producer of Hudson’s TV series “McMillan&Wife” and Hollywood reporter Rona Barrett.

The Brandon Teena Story is a documentary about hatred and homophobia in the heartland of America. The film focuses on the last few weeks of Brandon Teena’s life in a small town in Nebraska. When 20 year old Brandon arrived in rural Fall City, Nebraska in late 1993, his handsome looks and boyish charm won him several friends and a pretty young girlfriend.

On Christmas Eve Brandon was brutally raped and beaten by two of his friends who became enraged when they found out that Brandon was in fact a woman passing as a guy. A week later, on New Year’s Eve, the same men murdered Brandon along with two of his friends, Lisa Lambert and Philip Devine. All were shot twice at a close range and Brandon was stabbed several times as well.

The far-reaching effects of ingrained homophobia and misguided loyalty under a veneer of revealing the truth, and how this led to Brandon’s destruction are unravelled in this film.

In 1962, at the height of oppression in apartheid South Africa, a gay white theatre director was arrested with Nelson Mandela. His name was Cecil Williams. This is his story. Featuring Corin Redgrave as Cecil Williams.

Produced in association with Channel Four (UK), AVRO (Netherlands), SA Broadcasting, VRT-CANVAS (Belgium), Corporation for Public Broadcasting (USA), London Production Fund and the BFI.

World premiere Edinburgh 1998. Amsterdam Documentary Film Festival, 1998. Berlin International Film Festival 1999: Teddy Bear Award for Best Documentary. Best Documentary, Milan Gay Festival, 1999