A Long List of Lesbian Documentaries
We scoured the internet looking for a factual fix on lesbian life, history, and LGBT struggles from across the globe. Prop up your pillow, grab some popcorn, and enjoy the list of our favorite lesbian documentaries.
Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement (2009)
As far as lesbian documentaries go, Edie and Thea come up trumps. This is a Documentary about love that lasted for more than 40 years. Directed by: Susanuska and Gréta Ólafsdottir. In 2013, Edie Winsdor won a historical fight at the Supreme Court of the United States and overturned Section 3 of the Defensive of the marriage act.
It was considered a victory for the same-sex marriage movement in the US. Edie died on September 12, 2017, and her memory will be forever celebrated by the LGBTQ community.
Wish Me Away (2011)
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 ’90s 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.
Last Call at Maud’s (1993)
A lesbian Documentary directed by Paris Poirier. From 1966 until 1989, Maud’s was a San Francisco bar for women. Almost half of the film sets the context leading to Maud’s opening: lesbians discovering their sexual orientation and having few places to socialize. The foundation of the Daughters of Bilitis in 1955, the need for alternatives to gay (men’s) bars, subject to police raids in the 1950s.
So, Ricky Streicher opened Maud’s: her goal was an honest, open, free place. Good times were on the rise until the late 1970s, then came Harvey Milk’s assassination and AIDS. People drank less in the 1980s as well and had fewer casual affairs. Maud’s closes and patrons express great fondness for the place and its people.
Girl on Girl: An Original Documentary (2016)
Unlike any documentary film to date, Girl on Girl focuses its lens on the lives of feminine lesbians and invites the audience to discover what life is like for women whose identity is incessantly trivialized and stigmatized, both outside of and within queer spaces.
Girl on Girl challenges assumptions of what society imagines a lesbian to look like and, for the first time, addresses the issue of feminine lesbians feeling invisible even after coming out. The independently produced film features such ‘celesbian’ Lauren Bedford Russell (The Real L Word: Season 3), along with several other women from around the country, including New York, Florida, Utah, and North Carolina.
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Buy or Rent on Official website:
http://www.girlongirlmovie.com/#sthash.9VuoXup1.dpbs
Check It (2016)
A documentary that follows members of ‘Check It’, a group of young LGBT black women and men who live in Washington D.C.
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Official Website:
http://www.checkitfilm.com/
Purple Skies (2014)
Indian documentary directed by Sridhar Rangayan. Women in India are dis-empowered due to a predominantly patriarchal structure and to be a lesbian, bisexual or trans-man means double dis-empowerment. Fighting against stereotypes, gender & sexual bias, rigid family values and a law that criminalizes homosexuality, LBT people in India face insurmountable challenges to live openly and with dignity.
Finding love and a life partner are dreams that take a lot of determination to make it a reality. Purple Skies, a feature documentary by award-winning filmmaker Sridhar Rangayan, weaves together personal accounts of courageous LBT youngsters with a critical analysis of the issues faced by the community and places it in context of the historic struggle of the LGBT community in India to find its true place in society. While the reading down of the colonial law Sec 377 opened many closet doors, the recent re-criminalization by the highest court has posed many questions, fears, and anxieties. What do the dark clouds in the Purple Skies portend?
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Femme
Docuseries by TheFabFemme.com with WoC who identify as femme, talk about coming out, how they see themselves and their story in general.
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Outrage (2009)
Kirby Dick, the Academy Award-nominated director of This Film Is Not Yet Rated, exposes the hypocrisy of closeted politicians who actively campaign against the very community they secretly belong to. Some of the most influential policy-makers in the United States are gay, but you wouldn’t know it to look at their voting records — despite being members of the LGBT community, many closeted politicians actually vote against the proposals designed to give that community equal rights.
In speaking with such members of the gay community as U.S. representatives Tammy Baldwin and Barney Frank, as well as radio personality Michelangelo Signorile, activist Larry Kramer, and former N.J. governor Jim McGreevey, Dick is able to explore the complexities of leading a double lifestyle, as well as highlight the double standards of a media that has become obsessed with covering the sex lives of gay public figures.
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Forbidden Fruit (2000)
A 2000 German/Zimbabwean short documentary film written and directed by Sue Maluwa-Bruce.
Filmed in Zimbabwe, the film depicts the romantic relationship between two women, and the aftermath of the discovery of their relationship.
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American Masters: Billie Jean King (2013)
A PBS documentary about tennis megastar Billie Jean King, and what she did for women tennis and women in the spotlight. For the first time, American Masters profiles a sports figure: Billie Jean King, a determined woman who has been a major force in changing and democratizing the cultural landscape. ‘American Masters: Billie Jean King’ was made to commemorate the 40th anniversaries of the Billie Jean King v. Bobby Riggs “The Battle of the Sexes” match on Sept. 20, 1973, and the founding of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) by King on June 20 of that year.
This documentary traces the incredible life of the single most important female athlete of the 20th century as her 70th birthday nears. American Masters looks back to the 12-year-old Long Beach girl who played tennis on public courts, observed disparity and, as she soared athletically, never stopped trying to remedy inequality. During her professional tennis career, King won 39 Grand Slam titles, helped form the Virginia Slims Series (pre-cursor to WTA Tour), founded the Women’s Sports Foundation and Women’s Sports magazine, and co-founded World TeamTennis (WTT). Her competitiveness on the circuit was matched by her efforts on behalf of women and the LGBT community, and her commitment to prove there is strength in diversity.
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Out in the Night (2014)
A documentary directed and written by Blair Doroshwalther. Under the neon lights in a gay-friendly neighborhood of New York City, four young African-American lesbians are violently and sexually threatened by a man on the street.
They defend themselves against him and are charged and convicted in the courts and in the media as a ‘Gang of Killer Lesbians’.
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Buy on the ‘Out in the Night’ website (donation):
http://www.outinthenight.com/shop/
For The Bible Tells Me So
Delving into values of the religious right and the accompanying homophobia, this documentary focuses on how conservative Christians’ interpretation of the Bible is commonly used as a way to deny homosexuals equal rights.
Following five families with an openly gay son or daughter, director Daniel G. Karslake offers a firsthand look at how those in the Christian community with an out child are affected by the homophobic fervor. Karslake also interviews a number of religious leaders.
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It’s Not Unusual: A Lesbian and Gay History (1997)
BBC documentary bringing archival footage and interviews with 22 lesbians and gay men.
The documentary provides an overview of gay history in the UK from the 1920’s including clause 28, The Well of Loneliness novel, AIDS, and the Pet Shop Boys, it’s all there in some form or another.
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Forbidden love: The Unshamed Stories of Lesbian Life
This documentary about lesbians in Canada alternates between fiction and non-fiction. Along with interviews of real women who discuss coming to terms with their sexuality during the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, there are dramatized scenes based on the “Beebo Brinker Chronicles,” a series of hard-boiled lesbian pulp novels by Ann Bannon published during the ’50s.
Meanwhile, the interviewed women talk about Vancouver and Toronto’s gay scenes of the time, which were their own pulp-worthy underworlds
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Living with Pride (Ruth Ellis @ 100) (1999)
Born July 23, 1899, in Springfield, Illinois, Ruth Ellis was thought to be the oldest “out” African American lesbian known. The film offers a rare opportunity to experience a century of our American history as lived by one inspiring woman.
By example, Ruth Ellis shows us what is possible and what can be realized, if one not only lives long and ages well, but also lives with pride. Footnote: Ruth Ellis died peacefully in her sleep on October 5, 2000.
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Trembling before G-d (2001)
Shot in six countries, this documentary shatters assumptions about faith, sexuality, and religious fundamentalism. Built around intimately-told personal stories of Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who are gay or lesbian, the film portrays a group of people who face a profound dilemma – how to reconcile their passionate love of Judaism and the Divine with the drastic Biblical prohibitions that forbid homosexuality.
As the film unfolds, we meet a range of complex individuals – some hidden, some out – from the world’s first openly gay Orthodox rabbi to closeted, married Hasidic gays and lesbians to those abandoned by religious families to Orthodox lesbian high-school sweethearts. Many have been tragically rejected and their pain is raw, yet with irony, humor and resilience, they love, care, struggle, and debate with a thousands-year-old tradition. Ultimately, they are forced to question how they can pursue truth and faith in their lives–and survive–while upholding the universal struggle to belong.
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Hearts Cracked Open: Tantra For Women Who Love Women (2004)
Experience the never before seen world of lesbian Tantra in this groundbreaking, award-winning documentary.
Go behind the doors of women-only workshops with the most renowned Tantra teachers, as they reveal the secret of how to live in a daily orgasmic state of being.
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Cássia Eller (2014)
A Brazilian documentary directed by Paulo Henrique Fontenelle. Cássia Eller is an iconic Brazilian rocker, who left her mark in music with her powerful voice and she was the first Brazilian in history who was out as an openly gay singer and her son’s custody was awarded to her life partner upon her death.
The documentary chronicles her life, her music, and her impact through interviews with both musicians and family, weaving a portrait of the iconic figure, shy and fragile off stage, but a force of nature as soon as she started to sing.
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Paris was a Woman by Greta Schiller
Originally a book written by Andrea Weiss, this documentary is a dazzling portrait of the creative community of women writers, artists, photographers and editors who flocked to Paris in the early decades of the 20th century, when Paris was the undisputed cultural capital of the world.
Using groundbreaking research and newly discovered home movies, ‘Paris Was a Woman’ uses intimate storytelling to weave interview with anecdote. The film recreates the mood and flavor of this female artistic community in the City of Light during its most magical era.
Included in this milieu are authors Colette, Djuna Barnes and Gertrude Stein, poets HD and Natalie Clifford Barney, painters Romaine Brooks and Marie Laurencin, editors Bryher, Alice B. Toklas, Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, photographers Berenice Abbott and Gisele Freund, booksellers Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier, and journalist Janet Flanner.
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Paris Was a Woman-trailer from Jezebel Productions on Vimeo.
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The Out List
To commemorate National Coming Out Day, HBO documentary ‘The Out List’ features high-profile members of today’s LGBTQ community.
Each member reveals their struggles and triumphs of being’out’ in the modern day United States. This is one of the most viewed lesbian documentaries on the web.
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It’s Elementary
The groundbreaking film that addresses anti-gay prejudice by providing adults with practical lessons on how to talk with children about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people.
This documentary is part of the ‘Respect for All Project’.
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Southwest of Salem
A documentary that follows the struggle for exoneration of four Latina lesbians who were wrongfully convicted of gang rape against two young girls.
Watch on Vimeo:
Southwest of Salem – Festival Trailer from Deborah S. Esquenazi on Vimeo.
A Gay Girl in Damascus: The Amina Profile (2015)
A Canadian documentary that explores the story of Amina Arraf, a Syrian- American revolutionary whose blog ‘A Gay Girl in Damascus’ acquires a huge following as the Syrian uprising gains momentum. Sandra Bagaria, a smart, young Montreal professional, is involved in an online affair with her when Amina is allegedly abducted by the Syrian secret police-sparking an international movement to save her from torture, rape or even death.
Playing out like a detective story, ‘A Gay Girl in Damascus: The Amina Profile’ involves American intelligence agencies, major global media outlets, and a host of activists and sympathizers. But what starts as a love story becomes a tale of deceit and betrayal enabled by the global internet and viral social media.
Watch online at Hulu:
http://123hulu.com/watch/JdAlmyGL-a-gay-girl-in-damascus-the-amina-profile.html
Gayby Baby
Kids being raised by same-sex couples are growing in numbers worldwide. We are in a Gayby-Boom. But who are these kids? What do they think about having same-sex parents? And do they face different issues to other kids?
At a time when the world is debating marriage equality, these questions are more pertinent than ever. Told from the perspective of the kids, Gayby Baby is an intimate and sometimes humorous account of four children and their families.
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Mom’s Apple Pie: The Heart of the Lesbian Mothers’ Custody Movement (2006)
While the beginnings of the LGBT Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum, the 1970s witnessed horrific custody battles for lesbian mothers. “Mom’s Apple Pie: The Heart of the Lesbian Mothers’ Custody Movement” revisits the early tumultuous years of the lesbian custody movement through the stories of five lesbian mothers and their four children.
Narrated by Kate Clinton, the documentary interviews the sons and daughters who were separated from their mothers, the mothers themselves, and one woman who made the difficult decision to flee with her children.
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Mom’s Apple Pie: The Heart of the Lesbian Mothers’ Custody Movement clip from Frameline on Vimeo.
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Chicks in White Satin (1994)
An oscar-nominated short documentary film about the Jewish same-sex marriage of two lesbians, including interviews with the Rabbi and various family members. When Heidi Ellis and Debra Stern were planning their unconventional wedding ceremony, it never occurred to them that their celebration would gain the attention of the motion picture academy.
Ellis and Stern, both now 30-year-old social workers living in San Diego, were approached two years ago by Elaine Holliman, then a graduate student at USC Film School. Holliman asked if she could make a short documentary about the two lesbians’ commitment ceremony, which they had planned for Nov. 15, 1992, and their families’ reactions to it.
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Keep Not Silent (Hebrew: את שאהבה נפשי Et Sheaava Nafshi)
A 2004 documentary film by Israeli director Ilil Alexander about three lesbians in Jerusalem. Lesbianism is generally viewed as forbidden in Orthodox Judaism. In Jerusalem, a number of Orthodox Jewish lesbians formed a group called OrthoDykes for mutual support and to learn the relevant issues in Jewish law. The film describes lives of three of them. One is Yudit, single and trying to have her same-sex marriage follow the Orthodox rules.
Another is Miriam-Ester (pseudonym), who is married to a man and has ten children. She is suppressing her lesbian feelings in order to keep her marriage for religious reasons. Ruth, another married lesbian, keeps her marriage for the same reason, while her husband agrees to her seeing her lover regularly.
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New Deep South
This series explores the vibrant and multifaceted queer culture that is emerging in the American South. Our first stop is Jackson, Mississippi and the Delta area. Playing against old stereotypes of Mississippi as a state of social conservatism and stagnation, we follow the lives of queer youth to explore the tangled and complex nature of sexual identity in the New Deep South.
In the first episode, they follow Toni and Keeta, a queer couple in Jackson, Mississippi, as they try to start a family in a state where same-sex adoption is still illegal. So, they turn to the best resource at their disposal: Instagram.
Episode 1:
A Jihad for Love (2008)
“A Jihad for Love” is the world’s first feature documentary to explore the complex global intersections between Islam and homosexuality. Parvez enters the many worlds of Islam by illuminating multiple stories as diverse as Islam itself.
The film travels a wide geographic arc presenting us lives from India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, South Africa and France. Always filming in secret and as a Muslim, Parvez makes the film from within the faith, depicting Islam with the same respect that the film’s characters show for it.
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Ladies and Gentlewomen
A Tamil language Indian documentary by Malini Jeevarathnam and produced by Pa. Ranjith. It is about love, life, and suicide among lesbians. The documentary also features a “Lesbian Anthem” for which the music was composed by Justin Prabhakaran and lyrics were penned by Kutti Revati.
The documentary narrated the tale of Tija and Bija, a lesbian couple believed to be from Rajasthan, and also about a Tamil folktale that features the lovers Pappathi and Karupaayi. The documentary also featured different perspectives about lesbian women from LGBTQ activists, journalists, lawyers and common people.
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Boy I Am (2006)
While female-to-male transgender visibility has recently exploded in modern-day media, conversations about trans issues in the lesbian community often run into resistance from the many queer women who view transitioning as a “trend” or as an anti-feminist act that taps into male privilege.
‘Boy I Am’ is a feature-length documentary that begins to break down that barrier and promote dialogue about trans issues through a look at the experiences of three young transitioning FTMs in New York City — Nicco, Norie and Keegan — as they go through major junctures in their transitions, as well as through the voices of lesbians, activists, and theorists who raise and address the questions that many people have not openly discussed.
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Buy on Women Make Movies:
http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c696.shtml
Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls (2011)
Argot Pictures is proud to present the US theatrical release of ‘The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls’ a documentary by Leanne Pooley. Winner of numerous awards, including Best Feature Documentary at New York’s NewFest 2010 and the Cadillac People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival 2009.
‘The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls’ tells the story of the world’s only comedic, singing, yodeling lesbian twin sisters, Lynda and Jools Topp, whose political activism and unique brand of entertainment has helped change New Zealand’s social landscape. In the process they have become well-loved cultural icons.
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Training Rules
The documentary is subtitled as ‘No Drinking, No Drugs, No Lesbians’ is a Woman Vision film. Director Dee Mosbacher, a lesbian feminist activist filmmaker, and psychiatrist established Woman Vision as a nonprofit organization. Her aim is to promote tolerance and equal treatment of all people through the production and use of educational media.
Training Rules examines how women’s collegiate sports, caught in a web of homophobic practices, collude in the destruction of the lives and dreams of many of its most talented athletes.
It focuses on the women’s basketball program at Pennsylvania State University under head coach Rene Portland and her policy of discrimination on her players based on their sexual orientation from the 1980s to the late 1990s.
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She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry (2014)
Filmmaker Mary Dore chronicles the events, the movers and the shakers of the feminist movement from 1966 to 1971. The documentary resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women’s movement from 1966 to 1971.
The film takes us from the founding of NOW, when ladies wore hats and gloves, to the emergence of more radical factions of women’s liberation, from intellectuals like Kate Millett to the street theatrics of WITCH (Women’s International Conspiracy from Hell!).
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Small Town Gay Bar (2006)
Written and directed by Malcolm Ingram. The lives of the LGBTQ community in the Deep South are explored in this documentary, which looks at two bars in rural Mississippi that cater to a homosexual clientele. “Rumors” is in all other ways a modest neighborhood hangout, “Crossroads” is an anything-goes establishment.
Interviews with regular patrons portray both bars as islands of acceptance in an ocean of prejudice, exemplified by the derision of customers at nearby straight bars and the cutting homophobia of anti-gay preacher Fred Phelps.
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Paragraph 175 (2000)
Paragraph 175 interviews the few surviving homosexuals who endured unspeakable horrors under the Nazi regime.
Through the testimonies of these men and woman, an untold chapter of the Holocaust unfolds. It is extremely painful for these survivors to recall what they went through, and their expressive silences speak volumes.
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Hit So Hard (2012)
As grunge took off, the music industry was completely transformed in a way nobody expected… especially the young musicians who went from tiny shared Seattle apartments to international superstardom, sometimes overnight. Some handled it well… and some did not.
As the acclaimed drummer of Courtney Love’s seminal rock band Hole, Patty Schemel was right in the middle of all of it. The openly gay woman who always felt “different” never dreamed she would be part of a multi-platinum selling band, touring with legends, or on the cover of Rolling Stone. Or that, thanks to drug addiction, she could lose it all. Hit So Hard tells the story of Patty’s rise to fame (and nearly fatal fall from it), with no punches pulled… and it’s one hell of a story.
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Regarding Susan Sontag
An intimate and nuanced investigation into the life of one of the most influential and provocative thinkers of the 20th century. Passionate and gracefully outspoken throughout her career, Susan Sontag became one of the most important literary, political and feminist icons of her generation.
The documentary explores Sontag’s life through evocative experimental images, archival materials, accounts from friends, family, colleagues, and lovers, as well as her own words, read by actress Patricia Clarkson. Directed by Nancy D. Kates.
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Watch online at
http://putlockers.fm/watch/zGWWErGP-regarding-susan-sontag.html
Before Stonewall (1984)
Directed by Greta Schiller, Robert Rosenberg. The riots that followed the arrests at New York City’s Stonewall Inn in 1969 are widely considered to be a major development in the history of gay and lesbian rights in America.
This documentary investigates national cultural perceptions of homosexuality before the event, looking back on previous decades, particularly in regard to conflicts with police and censorship. In addition to interviews with activists and scholars, the film includes the reflections of renowned writer Allen Ginsberg.
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The Same Difference (2015)
A compelling documentary about lesbians who discriminate against other lesbians based on gender roles. Director Nneka Onuorah takes an in-depth look at the internalized hetero-normative gender roles that have become all too familiar within the African American lesbian and bisexual community. Onuorah shows how these behaviors reproduce the homophobic oppression and masculine privilege of the straight world while looking for solutions in compelling discussions with community members.
Self-identified studs—and the women who love them—discuss hypocrisy in terms of gender roles, performative expectations, and the silent disciplining that occurs between community members. This film features many queer celebrities, including actress Felicia “Snoop” Pearson from the critically acclaimed HBO drama The Wire, and Lea DeLaria from Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black, living daily with opinions about how identity should be portrayed. Onuorah’s engaging documentary shines a light on the relationships and experiences within the queer black female community, intersecting race, gender, and sexuality. This is one of the best lesbian documentaries for Women’s, Gender and Queer Studies.
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Rent on Vimeo:
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thesamedifference
The Celluloid Closet (1995)
A book by Vito Russo and a documentary made in 1995. This documentary highlights the historical contexts that gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders have occupied in cinema history, and shows the evolution of the entertainment industry’s role in shaping perceptions of LGBT figures.
The issues addressed include secrecy — which initially defined homosexuality — as well as the demonization of the homosexual community with the advent of AIDS, and finally the shift toward acceptance and positivity in the modern era.
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A Union In Wait (2001)
A documentary directed by Ryan Butler. In May of 1981, Wendy Scott would meet a new co-worker named Susan Parker. Their new friendship would quickly transform into something more special. ‘A Union In Wait’ takes a very personal look at Susan Parker and Wendy Scott’s relationship and the controversy that would make their private life anything but private.
Susan Parker and Wendy Scott are members of Wake Forest Baptist Church. In 1997 the couple decided they wanted to have a union ceremony in Wake Forest University’s Wait Chapel, but the university told them no. Susan Parker, Wendy Scott, their church, and many others joined together to fight the school’s decision in what would become a controversy that divided a community in North Carolina and made national headlines. A Union In Wait includes footage from the Millennium March on Washington, attended by over eight hundred thousand gay activists.
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Ashley and Kisha: Finding the Right Fit
Starring a young, lesbian couple made up of two able-bodied, cis women of color. Athletic Ashley and curvaceous Kisha are both conventionally attractive and feminine-presenting. Their interview tells a classic gay-girl-meets-thinks-she’s-straight-girl tale of their falling for one another at college, where Ashley, the out-and-proud lesbian about campus, gradually persuades Kisha that she “maybe has tendencies” before giving her “the most sensual sex” of her life.
Their narrative has plenty of endearing moments, and Kisha’s description of the revelation of what sex with women turned out to be, despite her initial insistence that she didn’t know what Ashley could do for her, has an erotic charge which leads nicely into the “love scene”.
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Freeheld by Cynthia Wadeis (2007)
This documentary chronicles the story of lesbian Laurel Hester in her fight against the Ocean County, New Jersey Board of Chosen Freeholders to give her earned pension benefits to her partner, Stacie. On February 24, 2008, ‘Freeheld’ won the Academy Award for Best Short Documentary making it one of the best lesbian documentaries of all time.
The documentary also won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007. A movie of the same name was released in 2015 starring openly gay Hollywood actress Ellen Page, and Julianne Moore.
Watch trailer:
Freeheld (HBO) – Trailer from Cynthia Wade on Vimeo.
Buy the DVD:
http://www.freeheld.com/orderdvd.html
TransGeneration
An American television documentary series that offers a view into the lives of four transgender college students during the 2004–2005 academic year.
Two of the students are trans women, and two are trans men. Each of them lives on-campus at a different school, and they are each at a different stage of their academic career and their transitions.
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Blindsided
Directed by Lisa Olivieri. ‘Blindsided’ follows the story of a woman named Patricia, who was diagnosed with Usher syndrome as a child, a rare condition that leads to blindness and deafness. Despite her vision and hearing worsening throughout her life, Patricia found solace, joy in music and painting.
But despite Patricia’s remarkably positive approach to life, her story took a dark turn when she fell in love with a woman named Karen and the two moved in together. Karen began abusing Patricia, both verbally and physically. The two lived together for 17 years before Patricia finally moved out, having fallen in love with another woman named Bella. They married but shortly after the honeymoon, Bella became abusive, too. Five years later, Patricia left Bella on grounds of spousal abuse. Bella eventually pled guilty to felony assault on a disabled person and was sentenced to two years of probation.
Watch Trailer:
http://www.lisaolivieri.com/synopsis/mini
Reviews and Screenings:
http://www.lisaolivieri.com/reviews/
Out Late (2008)
This feature film looks at five individuals who made a decisive change later in life-to come out as lesbian, gay, or trans gender, after the age of 55. Why did they wait until their 50’s, 60’s, or 70’s to come out? And what was the turning point that caused each of these people finally to openly declare their sexuality?
From Canada to Florida, to Kansas, we find out what ultimately led these dynamic individuals to make the liberating choice to pursue fully integrated lives.
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Raising Hell
Raising Hell is a 2010 documentary film by Ed Webb-Ingall that explores the experiences of children of gay and lesbian parents. Webb-Ingall specifically sought to “create a safe space where kids could be seen to be speaking freely and openly about their experiences with gay and lesbian parents without having to be poster kids for the perfect family or the perfect childhood”.
The film also features interviews with sociologist and gay activist Jeffrey Weeks, psychologist Susan Golombok and family lawyer Gill Butler.
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For more info visit the official website:
https://raisinghellfilm.wordpress.com/page/2/
Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema (2006)
A chronological look at films by, for, or about (or ‘by, for, and about’) homosexuals in the United States, from 1947 to 2005, from Kenneth Anger’s ‘Fireworks’ to Ang Lee’s ‘Brokeback Mountain’.
Talking heads, anchored by critic and scholar B. Ruby Rich, are interspersed with an advancing chronology and with clips from two dozen films. The narrative groups the pictures around various firsts, movements, and triumphs: experimental films, independent films, sex on screen, outlaw culture and bad guys, female romances, films about A.I.D.S. and dying, the emergence of romantic comedy, transsexual films, films about diversity and various cultures, and then main-stream Hollywood drama.
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No Secret Anymore: The Times of Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon (2003)
‘No Secret Anymore’ is a documentary showing Del and Phyllis creating coalitions that took on the prevailing belief that lesbians were illegal, immoral and sick. Phyllis and Del did the groundbreaking work on lesbian mothers, sex education, family violence, and more.
Always working both from within and outside the institutions they sought to change, Del and Phyllis were able to advance the rights of women, lesbians, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Today these unapologetic and unstoppable activists are educating both the LGBT and aging movements on the needs of old lesbians.
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Word is Out
More than two dozen men and women of various backgrounds, ages, and races talk to the camera about being gay. Their stories are arranged in loose chronology: early years, fitting in (which for some meant marriage), disclosing their sexuality, establishing adult identities, and reflecting on how things have changed and how things should be.
Some speak as couples and some as singles. One lost her children in a custody decision, one was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army, two were sent to insane asylums. All see social progress as they reflect. News footage and a few vocal performances provide breaks as topics shift.
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Dangerous Living: Coming Out in the Developing World (2003)
‘Dangerous Living: Coming Out in the Developing World’ is a 2003 documentary film directed by American filmmaker John Scagliotti about the issues experienced by gay, lesbian and transgender people in developing countries.
It was the first documentary film to explore these issues in non-Western countries.
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All Aboard! Rosie’s Family Cruise
Entertainer Rosie O’Donnell, her wife, Kelli, and their children set sail for the Bahamas with 500 other gay, lesbian, and transgendered families in this television documentary. ‘All Aboard! Rosie’s Family Cruise’ goes behind the scenes of the 2004 inaugural voyage of R Family Vacations, a gay travel company founded by the O’Donnells. Interviews with a cross-section of passengers are interspersed with footage of on-ship entertainment (including Broadway-style musical numbers featuring O’Donnell) and on-shore demonstrations by anti-gay activists.
The cruise’s passengers include not only gay parents and their adopted and biological children, but also straight parents, siblings, and friends of gay passengers. O’Donnell says the goal in launching her company was to provide vacations with an atmosphere in which same-sex partners and their kids could feel welcome instead of scrutinized. Interview subjects recount tales of other, less queer-friendly vacations, while others give a peek at the realities of gay marriage and adoption. Several longtime couples celebrate weddings and commitment ceremonies, while others meet new friends and, in some cases, sperm donors and surrogate mothers.
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Where is the Ruth Ellis Documentary??????
Hi Kimberly, we just added the Ruth Ellis Living with Pride documentary on. Thanks for your input!