Archive

Bubot Niyar

When the second Intifada began, Israel closed its borders to workers from Palestinian territories who, during the previous years had taken on all the worst-paid jobs in the land. Just as in many industrialised countries, in Israel tasks such as housework or caring for the elderly are often delegated to foreign workers. Israel’s policy left a big hole in the job market, and so the Israeli authorities began to encourage workers from other parts of t...

Buddies

New York in the summer of 1985. What we now know to be the AIDS crisis is approaching its first peak. The realisation is a shock, albeit at this stage only for those affected. It demands a complete rethink in the gay scene, which for the first time in history is functioning with a sense of equality and autonomy; moving away from radical hedonism towards a stronger awareness of the need to care for one another. David is looking after Robert, who ...

Bugis Street Redux

It’s monsoon season in Singapore during the Vietnam War. Bugis Street, the epicentre of multisexual nightlife and unchained libido, is where a band of hedonistic, transidentical poeple has taken root at the wacky love hotel SinSin. The lives of this crew of truly perverse, polymorph creatures are devoted exclusively to their dreams, beauty, desire and pleasure. Enter sixteen-year-old Lian, fresh from the country. She has come to this cheerfully h...

Bulbul Can Sing

‘Why are you always angry? Girls should be modest. Girls should behave well. You should be calm.’
In the atmospheric light of dusk and dawn, Rima Das portrays the lives of three friends on the threshold of adulthood. Poetic sensuality contrasts with authentic scenes of everyday life in their Indian village, where carefree youthfulness comes face to face with merciless reality. The story's protagonist is Bulbul, whose voice fails her when she...

Bushido zankoku monogatari

The attempted suicide of his fiancée prompts a Japanese salary-man to read his family chronicles and look back at the life of his ancestors. They were samurai, the military nobility caste who carried out acts of violence at the behest of feudal lords, but suffered evenmore so under their cruelty, often forced into ritual suicide (seppuku). The women were under constant threat of kidnapping and rape,and the men subjected to arbitrary disfiguremen...

Cabaret

In early 1930s Berlin, aspiring writer Brian Roberts falls in love with honky-tonk singer Sally Bowles. The ex-pat American with her zest for life takes the uptight British academic on a merry tour of the nightlife of a capital city already abounding with the aggressive presence of the Nazis. The relationship is tested when they meet rich aristocrat Max and Sally begins an affair with him. But she’s not the only one ...This film version of the Br...

Café com Leite

Whenever Lucas can’t sleep he hops into Danilo’s bed. The boy has been living with his brother since the death of his parents. But, in fact, Danilo already shares his bed with somebody else.

Calamity qui?

Christine Boisson is being interviewed at her Parisian apartment. The things she says and the images that appear seem to have something to do with the legendary character named Calamity Jane. But what exactly is the relationship between the two women?

Calcinculo

Benedetta, 15, lives in rural Italy with her parents and her two little sisters. After work, her father enjoys tinkering with cars while her mother takes out her frustration on Benedetta. When a funfair sets up on the family’s doorstep, she meets a fairground worker named Amanda who lives a self-determined life and defies gender norms. Benedetta is immediately fascinated by the older Amanda’s self- confidence and independence, and school quic...

Call Me by Your Name

It’s the hot, sun-drenched summer of 1983 and Elio is at his parents’ country seat in northern Italy. The 17-year-old idles away the time listening to music, reading books and swimming until one day his father’s new American assistant arrives at their large villa. Oliver is charming and, like Elio, has Jewish roots; he is also young, self-confident and good-looking. At first Elio is somewhat cold and distant towards the young man but before long...

Call Me Kuchu

The anti-homosexuality bill that religious groups in Uganda are trying to have passed, calls for imprisonment of homosexuals and, in ‘severe cases’ even the death penalty. In a country where ninety-five percent of the population condone the criminalisation of homosexuality, a group of queer activists are fighting to prevent this legislative proposal from going ahead.
This film describes the life of David Katos, Uganda’s first openly gay activist...

Cancelled Faces

A man, striving for autonomy, lives in fear of being absorbed by his lover. Korea, the now: When Unk hits Boaz on his scooter, an amour fou takes its course in a performative ballad of dependency, which is intertwined with the staging of an ancient story.

Capote

November 1959. As a result of the success of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” Truman Capote is now a celebrated writer and – thanks to his ability to spin a good yarn – also a much sought-after party guest among New York’s intellectual circles. One day while reading the “New York Times”, he comes across a report of a brutal criminal case involving the slaughter – in cold blood – of a family of four in Holcomb, Kansas. Try as he might, Capote can’t seem to...

Caravaggio

On his deathbed, the painter Michelangelo Caravaggio (1571–1610) looks back on his life. In flashbacks we see his childhood in Bergamo and Milan, the man who fostered his talent, Cardinal Del Monte in Rome, the controversy over his realistic painting style, and above all, his relationships with his models. Caravaggio finds the models for his mainly religious paintings among outsiders. On his forays into the world of the poor, criminals, and drunk...

Carmelita Tropicana: Your Kunst Is Your Waffen

"Hello people - I don't need no American Express Card! I am Carmelita Tropicana, Ms. Lower East Side Beauty Queen, famous nightclub entertainer an star of stage and screen. I love the Lower East Side. The men especially very friendly. All the time when I walk down the street they say: 'Oye, mami, mami ...'."
Performance artist, Carmelita Tropicana, lives in Manhattan's East Village, by Hamilton Fish Park. After a performance one n...

Casa Roshell

You’d never know this is your home away from home. The surveillance camera outside shows a drab reception area and an unremarkable street in Mexico City; inside, the lights flash, but the tables are empty. Yet preparations are soon underway and fixed categories cease to apply: stubble is removed, make-up applied and strands of hair are teased into place; the camera is trained not on the men themselves, but what they see in the mirror. There’s ti...

Castanha

“What have I become? Me, a true 80’s creature?” is what the character played by João Carlos Castanha asks on stage, which could just as easily be directed at he himself: 52-year-old actor and transvestite João has his best years behind him. He’s ill, has lost both lovers and companions along the way and appears weary, even if none of this stops him from living the way he always has. João shares two rooms with his mother in a lower middle-class ho...

Casting

For her first television film – a remake of Fassbinder’s Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant – director Vera wants the perfect cast. But the first day of shooting is fast approaching and the numerous casting sessions have yet to find a suitable actress to play the leading role. Although the producer and crew are getting ever more exasperated with Vera, Gerwin is happy about the extra work, as he earns his money as an audition reader, delivering...

Caught Looking

It won't be long before interactive videos will be all the rage. Video players will exist which are addicted to gay sex fantasies in "virtual reality" and are at the mercy of the software producers.

Celebration

A six-year-old boy enters the limelight, timidly crosses the stage to greet the waiting crowd. Tension fills the air. All the boy’s friends and relatives are there.The boy climbs up onto a stool next to the microphone. He has invited everyone here today to celebrate his coming out – and everybody is expecting a speech.