Archive

Max

This documentary - probably the first cinematic portrait of a trans man - is one of numerous pioneering works by Monika Treut, who is herself an icon of emancipation movements. In this work, Native American Max Wolf Valerio reveals his journey into becoming a different gender. Displaying an extraordinary capacity for self-analysis, he proudly recounts his experiences with the male sex hormone testosterone and talks about the queer community’s ho...

Maya Deren's Sink

MAYA DEREN'S SINK explores Deren's concepts of space, time and form through visits and projections filmed in her LA and NY homes. Light projections in Deren's intimate space evoke a former time and space providing entree into the homes of an influential filmmaker we will never know. The film reclaims the spaces that inspired her work in order to share it with audiences. Time and space are collapsed as film locations of the 40’s are re-...

Maynila: Sa mga kuko ng liwanag

Fisherman Julio leaves his idyllic island province to search for his girlfriend Ligaya in Manila, where she allegedly has a job. He signs up at a construction site, where the workers are ruthlessly exploited. One day at the market, he spots the woman who lured Ligaya to the big city. She takes him to the house of a Chinese man, where Julio thinks he recognises his girlfriend at a window. When he loses both his job and his apartment, he ends up wi...

Medicine and Magic

The two videos in Medicine and Magic work together to try and bridge these two stories from my maternal grandparents’ family histories. I’ve been raised with stories of the medicine men in my family. A bundle that was used successfully to heal people. Stories of bear spirits that took care of us.
I don’t know about my Scottish side as much, but I did know some of the last names of my ancestors over there. There was one case with a last name a...

Mein wunderbares West-Berlin

In West Berlin in the 1960s it was possible to find bars where men could be left to themselves – a fact that was to turn the city into a magnet for young gay men. The protagonists of this film, all still active members of the community today, recall those early years in the city. Theirs are memories of a community that fought steadily for its existence, and of its change, right up to the fall of the Wall. Faced with considerable social repression...

Mes provinciales

Filled with expectations, Etienne moves to Paris from Lyon to study film directing at the Sorbonne. He leaves behind his girlfriend Lucie, promising to call her regularly via Skype. On his course he meets Jean-Noël and Mathias, they too have come to the metropolis from smaller cities and share his passion for cinema. Together they discuss the cinematic canon, read texts by Flaubert and Pasolini, and listen to Bach and Mahler. Jean-Noël proves t...

Meu nome é Bagdá

“You guys are awful. You don't even know the girl and the first thing you say is: ‘She's fucking hot.’ She's probably doing a whole lot of cool things you don't even know.”
Rolling through São Paulo on her skateboard, Baghdad wears her hair short, her trousers pulled up high, and her sweater tucked into the waistband. Baghdad is cool; she is a girl who respects whom she wants to respect – everyone else might find wet clumps of to...

Miao Miao

MIAO MIAO is the title of the film as well as the female protagonist's name. She is a shy exchange student from Japan. Struggling to adjust to her new life in Taiwan, she eventually gets to know one of her female classmates, Ai. Ai is an extroverted girl, who becomes increasingly enamoured with Miao Miao. Oblivious to Ai’s strong feelings for her, Miao Miao only has eyes for the brooding CD shop owner Chen Fei, a young guy with a secret past....

Miguel's War

In this portrait that is multi-layered both in terms of form and content, a gay man confronts the ghosts of his past and explores hidden longings, unrequited love and tormenting feelings of guilt. Miguel was born in 1963 to a conservative, Catholic Lebanese father and an authoritarian mother from a wealthy Syrian family. Numerous conflicts over his national, religious and sexual identity compelled him to flee to Spain in his early twenties. In p...

Mil nubes de paz cercan el cielo, amor, jamás acabarás de ser amor

17-year-old Gerardo and his friend Bruno have split up. Gerardo finds himself wandering aimlessly about the streets of Mexico City. As he meanders, he is tortured by images: every male body he sees rekindles memories of his lover, who is with him once again in his imagination. However, his wet dreams do not alleviate his suffering, nor does masturbation provide him with any kind of relief. Even his brief, surprising sexual encounters with strange...

Milk

Gay Rights Activist. Friend. Lover. Unifier. Politician. Fighter. Icon. Inspiration. Hero. His life changed history, and his courage changed lives. In 1977, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay man to be voted into a major public office in America. His victory was not just a victory for gay rights: he forged coalitions across the political spectrum. From senior citizens to union workers, ...

Min Homosyster

Ten-year-old Cleo has a head full of questions: How can I tell if I'm in love with somebody? How do I know if I prefer boys or girls? Since her older sister began dating another girl, there are new, strange feelings stirring inside Cleo. During a trip to the Norwegian fjords, she broaches the subject with the young couple and is given some helpful advice.

Mine vaganti

Tommaso is the youngest member of a large family of pasta-makers in Puglia. The Cantone family includes the mother, Stefania, a caring woman who is nonetheless trapped by middle-class conventions; the irascible father Vincenzo, who has high hopes for his progeny; the rather eccentric Aunt Luciana; the rebellious grandmother, who still yearns for her lost love; Tommaso’s sister Elena, a frustrated housewife, and his brother, Antonio, who works at ...

Minyan

For a Jewish prayer community or “minyan” to be able to hold a service, it must consist of at least ten practising Jews. David, who was born into a Russian immigrant family, is 17 years old and regularly helps out at minyans in Brighton Beach, a district of New York that is characterised by Jewish life. His father, a former boxing coach, his mother and his beloved grandfather all take this for granted. But David, who is just starting to tentativ...

Misfits

Tulsa, Oklahoma is a city in the midst of the USA’s Bible Belt with almost 400,000 inhabitants, over 4,000 churches and just one gay and lesbian youth centre. This is the meeting place for Larissa, Ben, ‘D’ and other youths who because of their decision to live gay, lesbian and transgender lives, are either not accepted or, on the contrary, have received strong support from their families and unconditional love.
Jannik Splidsboel, whose film How ...

Mishehu Yohav Mishehu

Danny is pregnant by Max but she doesn’t get around to telling him at a party. Meanwhile, Max is busy trying out his girlfriend Avishag’s sexual fantasies with her. She wants him to hit her when they have sex. Avishag takes her bruises over to Dror, whose dog she sits. A familiarity develops between the older man and the young woman that neither of them expected.
In three loosely connected chapters, director and actor Hadas Ben Aroya’s second fe...

Mitt liv som hund

A small Swedish town in 1959. Twelve-year-old Ingemar lives with a dog, his brother and his mother; she is suffering from tuberculosis and is at her wits’ end on account of his escapades. When her health deteriorates, Ingemar is sent away to live with his uncle in the country. Although there is no shortage of excitement in the village as a result of passionate football matches and bizarre events, Ingemar remains a loner. Longingly, his thoughts ...

Mommy Is Coming

Claudine and Dylan enjoy a happy relationship for the most part. But Dylan in particular is convinced that queer Berlin must surely have more to offer than monogamous lesbianism. And so the women decide to set off on a journey of discovery: Dylan discovers a new sex club where friendly young women help her to chart her own erotic map. Claudine becomes Claude and, at the hotel where she works, meets mature attractive Helen with whom she explores a...

Moms On Fire

An ordinary neighbourhood in an ordinary town. Two women sit on a sofa and scratch their pregnant bellies. Four days till the due date. The situation is as unbearable as it is unavoidable. It’s simply intolerable. Masturbation isn’t an option, the clitoris can’t even be reached, and the boyfriend is absent, but he’s boring anyway. The only advantage in having another child is that one no longer has to play with the first one. Artist and filmmaker...

Mondial 2010

A Lebanese gay couple decides to take a road trip to Ramallah. The film is recorded with their camera as they chronicle their journey. The protagonists and the viewers are invited through the couple's conversations into the universe of a fading city.