Jewelle Gomez

The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin celebrates one of the world’s most beloved storytellers, following his evolution from a conservative son of the Old South into a gay rights pioneer whose novels inspired millions to reclaim their lives.

With a fist full of credit cards, a lucky run at the horse track, and a title that called to mind a certain French film star, Franco Stevens launched the best-selling lesbian lifestyle magazine ever published, connecting her community in an unprecedented way. AHEAD OF THE CURVE is a new feature documentary about the extraordinary woman who started Curve magazine, and by doing so helped accelerate the political and social evolution of the nation.

Jewelle: A Just Vision traces the nodes of social movements from Civil Rights to Marriage Equality. It reveals radical Black and Indigenous feminist networks and thought that could shape what is to come. It drinks deeply from the art and activism of the incomparable Jewelle Gomez, Ioway & African American, Wampanoag, and Cape Verdean lesbian elder. Her life and work replenish humanity with fierce hope as her power swells into the world, from histories of Massasoit and her great-grandmother’s buckskin dress, queer Black ancestors, and slavery-era vampires to starry regenerative futures.

The 1920s saw a revolution in technology, the advent of the recording industry, that created the first class of African-American women to sing their way to fame and fortune. Blues divas such as Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Alberta Hunter created and promoted a working-class vision of blues life that provided an alternative to the Victorian gentility of middle-class manners. In their lives and music, blues women presented themselves as strong, independent women who lived hard lives and were unapologetic about their unconventional choices in clothes, recreational activities, and bed partners. Blues singers disseminated a Black feminism that celebrated emotional resilience and sexual pleasure, no matter the source.

A wildly original extravaganza, FtF: Female to Femme presents a saucy, indelible portrait of a people central to the gender revolution. Part doc-, part mock-umentary (see if you can tell which is which!), FtF explores the variations of femme identity. Interviews with famous femmes, including Guinivere Turner, Bitch and Leslie Mah (from Tribe 8) are interspersed with scenes from a parodic consciousness-raising group. FtF asks a lot of hard questions like “Does wearing a push-up bra make one a bad feminist?” Sub-genres such as the retro femme, fat femme, tomboy femme, punk femme, and high femme are all given their due. FtF is a savvy, defiant documentary that’ll make you laugh, make you think and make you want to dismantle the patriarchy, while in stilettos.

A four-part documentary telling the story of LGBTQIA+ horror and the relationship between queer audiences and horror, and the queer horror community as a whole.