Philadelphia QFest was founded in Philadelphia as the Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Film Festival by TLA Entertainment Group in 1995. It was given its current name, QFest, in 2009. One of the festival's founders and current Artistic Director, Raymond Murray, describes QFest's mission as giving gay and lesbian audiences the opportunity to see films that accurately reflect their life experiences without the filter of the "straight" Hollywood system.
NewFest: The New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival put on by The New Festival, Inc., is one of the most comprehensive forums of national and international LGBT film/video in the world.
QFest, formerly known as the Houston Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (HGLFF), is a nonprofit organization based in Houston, Texas, dedicated to promoting the media arts as a tool for communication and cooperation among diverse communities by presenting films, videos, and programs by, about, or of interest to the LGBT community.
A Jihad for Love is a 2008 documentary film and was the world's first film on Islam and homosexuality. It took a total of six years to make and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2007. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2008 as the opening documentary film for the Panorama section.
Jeffrey Schwarz is an American Emmy Award-winning film producer, director, and editor. He is known for an extensive body of documentary work including Boulevard! A Hollywood Story, The Fabulous Allan Carr, Tab Hunter Confidential, I Am Divine, Vito, Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon and Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story.
The Iris Prize, established in 2007 by Berwyn Rowlands of The Festivals Company, is an international LGBT film prize and festival which is open to any film which is by, for, about or of interest to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex audiences and which must have been completed within two years of the prize deadline.
Transparent is a 2005 documentary film written, directed, and produced by Jules Rosskam. Its title is a play on the words “trans” and “parent” implying the invisibility of transgender parenting in society today. The documentary follows 19 transgender men from 14 different states who have given birth to, and in most cases, gone on to raise, their biological children and the challenges they face while transitioning.
Dustin Lance Black is an American screenwriter, director, producer, and LGBT rights activist. He is known for writing the film Milk, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2009. He has also subsequently written the screenplays for the film J. Edgar and the 2022 crime miniseries Under the Banner of Heaven.
Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement is a 2009 American documentary film directed and produced by Susan Muska and Gréta Ólafsdóttir for their company Bless Bless Productions, in association with Sundance Channel. The film tells the story of the long-term lesbian relationship between Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer, including their respective childhoods, their meeting in 1963, their lives and careers in New York City, Thea's diagnosis with multiple sclerosis and Edie's care for her partner, and their wedding in Toronto, Canada, in May 2007, because gay marriage was not then legal in their home state of New York.
Training Rules is a 2009 American documentary co-produced and co-directed by Dee Mosbacher and Fawn Yacker. It is narrated by Diana Nyad.
Leena Manimekalai is an Indian filmmaker, poet and an actor. Her works include five published poetry anthologies and several films in genres, documentary, fiction and experimental poem films. She has been recognised with participation, mentions and best film awards in many international and national film festivals.
Gen Silent is a 2010 documentary film, directed and produced by Stu Maddux. The documentary follows the lives of six LGBT seniors living in the Boston area who must choose if they will hide their sexuality in order to survive in the long-term health care system. It has been screened at numerous colleges and universities as well as in front of government agencies and healthcare organizations. It premiered at the Boston LGBT Film Festival and has won numerous awards at others.
Stu Maddux is American freelance writer, editor, and cinematographer. He is a movie producer and director of his own non-fiction independent films. He is best known for his work Gen Silent, a documentary about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender older people who hide their sexuality or gender change in order to survive in the long-term care system. He also wrote and produced the films Bob and Jack's 52-Year Adventure and Trip to Hell and Back. His work has been featured internationally on television including on Showtime, TLC, and the BBC.
PJ Raval is a queer first-generation Filipino-American filmmaker known for his documentary films about underrepresented subcultures and identities within the LGBTQ+ community. Raval is a Guggenheim Fellow, a Robert Giard Fellow, a member of the Producers Guild of America, and the Academy of Motion Picture Art and Sciences. Raval was named one of Filmmaker's 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2006 and was a featured creator in the 2010 Out 100. Today, he lives in Texas and is an associate professor of the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the Moody College of Communication in the University of Texas at Austin.
Undressing Israel: Gay Men in the Promised Land is a 46-minute documentary written by American adult-film entrepreneur, columnist, gay activist and gay pornographic film director Michael Lucas, and co-directed by Lucas and Israeli director Yariv Mozer. In his debut as a documentary filmmaker, Michael Lucas portrays in this film released in 2012 Israel's thriving GLBT community through footage of Tel Aviv's vibrant nightlife, a same-sex wedding, and candid interviews with a diverse range of local Israeli gay men and lesbians, including a gay MP, an openly gay Army trainer, a drag queen, a transvestite, a young Arab-Israeli journalist, and same-sex parents raising their children and a number of artists and activists.
Getting Go: The Go Doc Project is a 2013 pseudo-documentary film written and directed by Cory James Krueckeberg.
The Same Difference is a 2015 documentary, directed by Nneka Onuorah. The documentary provides an insightful look at lesbians who discriminate against other lesbians based on gender roles. The film follows a series of lesbian women stories, discusses the hypocrisy in terms of gender roles and the performative expectations attached.
Andrea Weiss is an American independent documentary filmmaker, author, and professor of film/video at the City College of New York where she co-directs the MFA Program in Film. She was the archival research director for the documentary Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community (1984), for which she won a News & Documentary Emmy Award.
The One is a 2011 American romantic comedy film produced, written and directed by Caytha Jentis, in her directorial debut. It stars Jon Prescott, Ian Novick and Margaret Anne Florence. The film premiered at the Philadelphia CineFest on April 8, 2011, and was also screened at the Frameline Film Festival in June 2011, and at the Philadelphia QFest, in July 2011. It had a limited theatrical release on October 7, 2011. Fox Meadow Films, owned by Jentis, produced the feature film. Jentis said she wrote the screenplay "after spending several nights with friends discussing true love", and it was the fastest script she had ever written.
Finding Mr. Wright is a 2011 American romantic comedy film directed by Nancy Criss. It was produced by Matthew Montgomery and Nancy Driss, and written by Jake Helgren. The film stars Matthew Montgomery, Rebekah Kochan, David Moretti, Jason Stuart, Scotch Ellis Loring, Rasool J'Han and Evan Miller. The film had its premiere at the Philadelphia QFest on July 13, 2011. It then moved on for a screening at the FilmOut San Diego LGBT Film Festival on August 20, 2011.
