documentary

Director Sarah Polley looks for her family truths through the unreliable nature of storytelling in Stories We Tell.

It’s a given that the Middle East has a long way to go as far as LGBT acceptance is concerned. Remember that sound byte of Ahmadinejad claiming that Iran doesn’t have any homosexuals? Turkey is supposed to be the most secular and liberal Muslim country in the Middle East, yet its religious, right wing government still considers homosexuality to be a disease.

The emotional new Turkish documentary My Child successfully defends the idea that acceptance in any society begins with acceptance at home.

Director Shola Lynch spent eight years researching intricacies surrounding activist and scholar Angela Davis—she wanted to make sure that her film documenting Davis’s controversial 1972 murder trial got the story right. And, well, she did.

A review and clip of her new film Free Angela and All Political Prisoners are below the cut.

I love Stevie Nicks. Who doesn't? However, I came upon her music only within the last couple years—I'm by no means a Stevie expert. So I was excited to see In Your Dreams, the new film Nicks and collaborator Dave Stewart directed, at SXSW this month; the screening was a chance to learn more about Stevie from herself and an opportunity to wear a Stevie-approved ensemble (long flowing skirt obviously).

Two recent documentaries, two different coasts, one scary enemy, and hundreds of hours of footage. This is the history and legacy of the AIDS crisis in North America, as told by the cameras and concerned filmmakers who were there.

The name Li Ling Ai is a mystery to film historians. Without her film available, we might never find out about one of the first Asian American producers in Hollywood history.

What does it mean when brands of liberal feminism erase the histories of labor, caste, and communal segregation in their re-tellings of the city? And are still considered feminist texts?

Straight women: would you ever date a bisexual man? Do you think that bisexual men are more likely to spread STDs than straight men? Do you think that bisexual men are more feminine than straight men? These questions have preoccupied writer and filmmaker Arielle Loren’s work for the last few years. After falling in love with a bisexual man, Loren developed The Bi-deology Project, a two-part web series exploring straight women’s perceptions of bisexual men, particularly in the context of romantic relationships. The series has since inspired a feature-length documentary, Bideology, which will be premiering at film festivals this spring.

In 2005, Brittany Blockman and Josephine Decker took a road trip across the United States and interviewed people about bisexuality. The result of their project was a documentary film: Bi the Way. In order to understand the fictional images of bisexuality that fill our cinema and television screens, it’s important to take some time to analyze the ways in which bisexuality is depicted in nonfiction media. Bi the Way is a good starting place, since it’s a film that allows its subjects to speak honestly and freely, without an overt agenda from the filmmakers. But is that enough to make it a compelling film that advances realistic bisexual visibility?

Much of the publicity for the new HBO documentary Gloria: In Her Own Words tells us that the movie was made because young people don't know who Steinem is. As people who are currently reading/writing feminist blog content, you and I probably aren't who they're talking about. Still, whether you're a seasoned veteran of the feminist movement or one of these young whippersnappers the media are warning us about, the biopic is worth a watch.