Edward aka Blackie O
Himself
NYC Drag Queen Blackie O opens up about his own mental health and the wider drag community's.
Himself
The video revolution of the 1970s offered unprecedented access to the moving image for artists and performers. This Is Not a Dream explores the legacies of this revolution and its continued impact on contemporary art and performance. Charting a path across four decades of avant-garde experiment and radical escapism, This Is Not a Dream traces the influences of Andy Warhol, John Waters and Jack Smith to the perverted frontiers of YouTube and Chatroulette, taking in subverted talk shows and soap operas, streetwalker fashions and glittery magic penises along the way.

Imposed under the British colonial rule in 1860, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code criminalise any sexual acts between consenting adults of the same sex, stigmatising them as 'against the order of nature'. On July 2, 2009 the Delhi High Court passed a landmark judgment scrapping this clause, thus fulfilling the most basic demand of the Indian LGBTQ community, which had been fighting this law for the past 10 years. Three characters, Beena, Pallav and Abheena travel through the city of Bombay heading to the celebrations for the first anniversary of the historic verdict. '365 without 377' is the story of their journey towards freedom.
The Turkish army considers homosexuality a mental disorder which exonerates young men from military service, but also requires a medical diagnosis to be reached through both psychological and more invasive (and humiliating) diagnostic procedures.’Çürük’ is an intense, entirely anonymous recording of the mortifying procedure used by the Turkish military to make it possible for gay men to exempt themselves from military service. The humiliation includes psychological tests, anal examinations and the photographical proof of gay sex. The impact on gay men‘s self-esteem becomes more than obvious, when one of the protagonists doubtfully asks: “Do you think I'm a real man?”

Letter Beyond the Walls reconstructs the trajectory of HIV and AIDS with a focus on Brazil, through interviews with doctors, activists, patients and other actors, in addition to extensive archival material. From the initial panic to awareness campaigns, passing through the stigma imposed on people living with HIV, the documentary shows how society faced this epidemic in its deadliest phase over more than two decades. With this historical approach as its base, the film looks at the way HIV is viewed in today's society, revealing a picture of persistent misinformation and prejudice, which especially affects Brazil’s most historically vulnerable populations.

Armenia's most beloved weightlifter becomes the country's biggest shame when he comes out as transgender. It cost Mel his fame, his fortune, his family, and even his homeland. Today, under asylum in the Netherlands, his dream of gender transition is finally within reach - but how much must he sacrifice for it?