Social & External
The people behind it
1983 — A young biologist returns home from studies abroad and feels something wrong with his body. This is the start of the AIDS crisis when the first wave of the epidemic hit Brazil. Lives will change, friends will be lost and the future is uncertain.
Amid the late ’80s pop craze and rising HIV epidemic, 12-year-old Boaz uncovers a devastating secret about the father he idolizes that threatens to tear his family apart. Across a yearslong journey, Boaz seeks to heal the wound and reclaim the father-son bond he never stopped yearning for.
Steven Russell leads a seemingly average life – an organ player in the local church, happily married to Debbie, and a member of the local police force. That is until he has a severe car accident that leads him to the ultimate epiphany: he’s gay and he’s going to live life to the fullest – even if he has to break the law to do it. Taking on an extravagant lifestyle, Steven turns to cons and fraud to make ends meet and is eventually sent to the State Penitentiary where he meets the love of his life, a sensitive, soft-spoken man named Phillip Morris. His devotion to freeing Phillip from jail and building the perfect life together prompts him to attempt (and often succeed at) one impossible con after another.
Ananias, a San Francisco Bay Area artist and immigrant, performs the folkloric Danza de los Viejitos (the Dance of the Old Men). Originally from Michoacán, Mexico, where the dance originates, Ananias interprets its movements through the lens of his spirituality, his long-term HIV-related disabilities, and his search for a place in the world.
Told through the voice of former KGB agent Viktor Petrovich, whose life becomes inextricably linked with Ronald Reagan's when Reagan first caught the Soviets’ attention as an actor in Hollywood, Reagan overcomes the odds to become the 40th president of the United States.
An experimental essay film reflecting on love, temporality, memory, absence, and living with HIV.
Walter is HIV positive and is leading a promiscuis life in Rome. He does this so that he won’t infect his wife. Walter’s wife is also cheating on him. In a decidedly dull subplot, Walter’s father is a senator who wants to use his son’s illness to promote his own political career by calling for more AIDS research.
A story about life, love, survival and death of a family struggling to find a place under the sun. The son got infected with HIV and that's when the conflict started.
Through a campaign of fabulous surprise attacks, an underground band of radical queer HIV+ activists, addicts, and drag queens take to the streets of New York City to combat conservative politicians and government apathy towards the AIDS crisis.
With frank language and explicit imagery, this video addresses difficult issues such as sex and injection drug use in the age of AIDS. It is non-judgemental in its portrayal of young people acquiring, using, and sharing knowledge about safer sex and needle use. The video was produced by, for, and with "street youth" by the STD Prevention Project of Youthlink—Inner City in Toronto, Canada.
A trio of interweaved transgressive tales, telling a bizarre stories of suburban patricide and a miraculous flight from justice, a mad sex experiment which unleashes a disfiguring plague, and the obsessive sexual relationship between two prison inmates.
It is 1984. Frank is a determined English teenager who runs away from high school to find an alternative gay lifestyle in Amsterdam. He finds a home and a job at the "House of Boys", a bar-cum-brothel run by a strict Madame who has an eye for what his punters crave. Frank works his way up from barman to on-stage dancer and falls in love with some of his housemates, Jake. The first intimations of what is described as 'the gay cancer', casts a long shadow over Frank's tight-knit group of friends. Yet despite the troubles that cloud the hopes and dreams of young Frank, his perseverance, along with support from a willing doctor, will carry him through.
This early HIV/AIDS film uses the popular and compelling narrative format of the telenovela to illuminate the effects of AIDS on a cross-section ofthe Latino community in Northern California. Different families and individual characters address complex issues such as sexual practice, sexual identity, and drug use in the family. Touches upon safer sex, male homosexuality and bisexuality, and does well representing several Spanish-language idioms. Allows for the development of an elaborate story encouraging honesty and cultural survival as well as self-criticism within the Latino community.
Se Met Ko is a model fictional analysis of attitudes and misconceptions about AIDS within a Haitian-American neighbourhood. The video uses indigenous cultural references and socially-specific occasions to demonstrate how communities, with individuals acting in enlightened co-operation, can responsibly respond to the AIDS crisis.
Please Adjust Your Sex is a DIY no-budget videotape by and for young people that encourages viewers to engage in safer sex and safer drug use practices while also encouraging them to embrace their desires and reject the patronizing and moralizing media cacophony bombarding them everyday.
A teenage hustler and a young man obsessed with alien abductions cross paths, together discovering a horrible, liberating truth.
Two days in young Rasmus life. Day one he tells his parents that he has AIDS. Day two when he dies, in the wake of the disease.
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
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.
Recently escaped from reformatory, Reinaldo struggles to get by in the streets of Havana in the late 90s, one of the worst decades for Cuban society. Hopes, disillusionment, rum, good humor and above all hunger, accompany him in his wanderings, until he meets Magda and Yunisleidy, survivors like himself. In one or the other's arms, he will try to escape the material and moral misery surrounding him, living love, passion, tenderness and uninhibited sex to the limit.
The story of the discovery of the AIDS epidemic and the political infighting of the scientific community hampering the early fight with it.
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
A street smart runner develops an intense rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy young athlete.
The story of golf icon and legend, Bobby Jones, who retired from competition at the tender age of 28.
After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé comes before her king with an unreasonable demand. Beguiled by John the Baptist, and then scorned for the sake of his god, lascivious Salomé—encouraged by her mother, the vindictive, Herodias—commands that John be executed and his head delivered on a silver platter.
When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife Monica is trying to manage the lives of their adult children, Annabelle and David, as well as her own.
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
After being falsely accused of a terrible crime, Hector, a man with a neurological disability, goes to a secret prison. His goodness conquers the prisoners, who plan to prove their innocence.
Ana and her two best friends, Maria and Paula, navigate life in their oppressive countryside village. Whilst their families struggle in the poppy fields harvesting opium, the girls try to grow alongside the creeping terror of their cartel oppressors.
Jo, the mother of seven children, divorces her second husband in order to marry Jake, a successful but promiscuous screenwriter. Though they are physically and emotionally compatible, they are slowly torn apart.
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.
While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
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.
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
A teenager faces an uphill battle when she fights to give women the opportunity to play competitive soccer.
