Special Collection

2012 marks the 20th anniversary of Audre Lorde’s passing, the acclaimed Black lesbian feminist poet and activist. Throughout the 70s and 80s, Lorde’s incisive writings and speeches defined and inspired the women of color, feminist and LGBT social justice movements in the United States.

AUDRE LORDE - THE BERLIN YEARS 1984 TO 1992 explores a little-known chapter of the writer’s prolific ... More

Black Nations/Queer Nations?

Shari Frilot

Producer: Frilot and Black Nations/Queer Nations?

1995, 52 min., Color, US

This is an experimental documentary chronicling the March 1995 groundbreaking conference on lesbian and gay sexualities in the African diaspora. The conference brought together an array of dynamic scholars, activists, and cultural workers including Essex Hemphill, Kobena Mercer, Barbara Smith, Urvashi Vaid, and Jacqui Alexander to interrogate the economic, political, and social situations of diasp ... More

Dreams Deferred: The Sakia Gunn Film Project

Charles B. Brack

Producer: Charles B. Brack, CoProduced with Third World Newsreel

2008, 58 min., Color, US

This documentary tells the little known story of Sakia Gunn, a 15 year old student who was fatally stabbed in a gay hate crime in Newark, New Jersey. Sakia was an Aggressive, according to GLAAD, a homosexual woman of color who dresses in masculine attire but does not necessarily identify as female-to-male transgender. Sakia held promise as a basketball player and was an "A" student, looking forwar ... More

I Exist: Voices from the Lesbian and Gay Middle Eastern Community in the US

Peter Barbosa & Garrett Lenoir

Producer: Peter Barbosa

2003, 56 min., Color, US

“I Exist” is a documentary exploring individual journeys of Lesbian and Gay people of Middle Eastern cultures living in the United States. The cultural and religious challenges that many Lesbian and Gay Middle Eastern people endure are unparalleled. This documentary shows the journey many take in learning how to join both their cultural heritage and sexual identity. Even with these challenges, st ... More

Jareena, Portrait of a Hijda

Prem Kalliat

1990, 25 min., Color, India

This video offers a profile of a transsexual and her community in the Indian city of Bangalore. It provides a unique insight into the lives of Hijdas, a society of eunuchs numbering in the tens of thousands who have thrived in India for centuries. The Hijdas work as prostitutes and are a close-knit group who live and work communally. Jareena, who assumes the role of a man when she visits her famil ... More

A Litany For Survival: the Life and Work of Audre Lorde

Ada Gay Griffin & Michelle Parkerson

Producer: Third World Newsreel

1995, 52 min., Color, US

An epic portrait of the eloquent, award-winning Black, lesbian, poet, mother, teacher and activist, Audre Lorde, whose writings -- spanning five decades -- articulated some of the most important social and political visions of the century. From Lorde's childhood roots in NYC's Harlem to her battle with breast cancer, this moving film explores a life and a body of work that embodied the connections ... More

Marriage Equality: Byron Rushing And The Fight For Fairness

Thomas Allen Harris

2011, 15 min., Color, US

A documentary that connects the Lesbian and Gay Marriage Equality movement with the Black Civil Rights Movement.

This documentary interweaves archival footage and photos with contemporary interviews to illuminate events surrounding the pivotal Massachusetts state constitutional convention on same sex marriage. At the center of our story is Massachusetts Representative Byron Rushing, a ... More

On the Downlow

Abigail Child

2006, 54 min., Color, US

"On the Downlow" presents an intimate portrait of four men negotiating their bisexual desire within the African-American community of Cleveland, Ohio. These men selfdescribe as "dipping on both sides of the fence". The film showcases their secret lives and aspirations as it reveals the complex intersections of sexuality, race, class and family in contemporary middle America. We enter barely-unders ... More

Orientations

Richard Fung

Producer: Gay Asians Toronto

1985, 56 min., Color, Canada

More than a dozen men and women of different Asian backgrounds speak frankly about their lives as members of a minority within a minority. They speak about coming out, homophobia, racism, cultural identity and the ways that being gay and Asian have shaped who they are. Active in Canadian lesbian and gay organizations, the Asian community, the women's movement, unions, the arts and human rights w ... More

Out: The Making of a Revolutionary

Sonja de Vries & Rhonda Collins

2000, 60 min., Color, US

Convicted of the 1983 U.S. Capitol Bombing, and "conspiring to influence, change, and protest policies and practices of the United States government through violent and illegal means", Laura Whitehorn, an out lesbian and one of six defendants in the Resistance Conspiracy Case, spent 14 years in prison. "OUT" is the story of her life and times: five tumultuous decades of struggle for freedom and j ... More

Photos of Angie

Alan Domínguez

Producer: Alan Domínguez, David Domínguez & Jennifer Warren

2011, 55 min., Color, US

In 2008, 18 year-old, Mexican-American Angie Zapata was found dead in her small apartment in Greely, Colorado. The media quickly reported that she was a typical teenager – she loved using her cell phone, babysitting her nephews and nieces, and listening to music. What was not reported was that Angie was born as Justin. That same year, there were 44 reported murders of transgender persons worldwide ... More

Testing the Limits: NYC

Testing the Limits Collective

Producer: Testing the Limits Collective

1989, 30 min., Color, US

In 1987, the Ronald Reagan administration faced criticism from AIDS activists for its mismanagement of the AIDS crisis. Chanting "Test drugs, not people" and "Educate, don't isolate", activist groups took to the streets of New York City to denounce mandatory testing as a discriminatory practice and to demand more HIV/AIDS research and educational initiatives. Shot by the Testing the Limits Collect ... More

Three Queer Mice

SupaFriends, Daniel Feliciano, Amanda Moscoso, Tatiana Lam Lo, Corina Leu & Alcides Torres

Producer: SupaFriends & Global Action Project

2007, 3 min., Color, US

This short animation is a remake of the nursery rhyme "Three Blind Mice". We find three very queer mice in a lot of trouble when their rights are being violated. Based on real events.

Global Action Project works with young people most affected by injustice to build the knowledge, tools, and relationships needed to create media for community power, cultural expression, and political chan ... More

Two Spirits: Native American Lesbians and Gays

Teresa Osa Hidalgo de la Riva

Producer: Deep Dish TV

1994, 28 min., Color, US

This video explores the Native American belief in “Two Spirit” human androgyny. A combination of the ability to love another of the same gender, to encompass “masculine” and “feminine” attributes within the same person, to be many things at once. This unique documentary compiles interviews with Native Americans from throughout the Americas and works to redefine difference and the complexities of s ... More

Vintage: Families of Value

Thomas Allen Harris

1995, 72 min., Color, US

VINTAGE is an experimental documentary which looks at three African American families through the eyes of lesbian and gay siblings--including the filmmaker and his younger brother. Three groups of queer siblings use video cameras to articulate the multiple stories that co-exist within the space of family, negotiating sexuality as a point of departure to explore these relationships. VINTAGE crosses ... More