The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees.
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.
Donna Deitch is an American film and television director, producer, screenwriter, and actor best known for her 1985 film Desert Hearts. The movie was the first feature film to "de-sensationalize lesbianism" by presenting a lesbian romance story with positive and respectful themes.
Cheryl Dunye is a Liberian-American film director, producer, screenwriter, editor and actress. Dunye's work often concerns themes of race, sexuality, and gender, particularly issues relating to black lesbians. She is known as the first out black lesbian to ever direct a feature film with her 1996 film The Watermelon Woman. She runs the production company Jingletown Films based in Oakland, California.
Outfest is an LGBTQ-oriented nonprofit that produces two film festivals, operates a movie streaming platform, and runs educational services for filmmakers in Los Angeles. Outfest is one of the key partners, alongside the Frameline Film Festival, the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival, and the Inside Out Film and Video Festival, in launching the North American Queer Festival Alliance, an initiative to further publicize and promote LGBT film.
Sridhar Rangayan is an Indian filmmaker who has made films with special focus on queer subjects. His queer films, The Pink Mirror, Yours Emotionally, 68 Pages, Purple Skies, Breaking Free & Evening Shadows have been considered groundbreaking because of their realistic and sympathetic portrayal of the largely closeted Indian gay community. His film The Pink Mirror remains banned in India by the Indian Censor Board because of its homosexual content.
The 54th Cannes Film Festival started on 9 May and ran until 20 May 2001. Norwegian actress and director Liv Ullmann was the Jury President. The Palme d'Or went to the Italian film The Son's Room by Nanni Moretti.
Lynne Sachs is an American experimental filmmaker and poet living in Brooklyn, New York. Her moving image work ranges from documentaries, to essay films, to experimental shorts, to hybrid live performances. Working from a feminist perspective, Sachs weaves together social criticism with personal subjectivity. Her films embrace a radical use of archives, performance and intricate sound work. Between 2013 and 2020, she collaborated with musician and sound artist Stephen Vitiello on five films.
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.
Eliza Hittman is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer from New York City. She has won multiple awards for her film Never Rarely Sometimes Always, which include the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the National Society of Film Critics Award—both for best screenplay.
Red Queen Productions is a Toronto-based, Canadian cinema company founded by filmmakers Maya Gallus and Justine Pimlott, dedicated to creating films about women, social issues, culture and the arts. Their films have screened internationally at Sheffield Doc/Fest, Dok Leipzig, SEOUL International Women’s Film Festival, Women Make Waves (Taiwan), This Human World Film Festival (Vienna), Singapore International Film Festival, Frameline Film Festival, Outfest (LA) and Newfest, among others, and have been broadcast around the world. Their work has won numerous awards, including a Gemini Award for Best Direction for Girl Inside.
Cassie Jaye is an American film director, best known for directing the 2016 documentary film The Red Pill about the men's rights movement.
Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. is a 2018 biographical documentary film about English rapper and artist M.I.A. Directed by Steve Loveridge, the film follows 22 years in the rapper's life, her rise to fame and her perspective on the controversies sparked over her music, public appearances and political activism.
Suicide Kale is a 2016 American dark comedy film, directed by Carly Usdin and written by Brittani Nichols. The film centers on Jasmine and Penn, a lesbian couple who unexpectedly find a hidden suicide note in the home of their friends Billie and Jordan. The film premiered at the Queer Hippo International LGBT Film Festival in Houston, Texas on April 3, 2016. Usdin won the Audience Award for Best First U.S. Dramatic Feature at 2016 Outfest.
Jules of Light and Dark is a 2018 American drama film directed by Daniel Laabs. It was screened at NewFest's 2018 film festival where it won the Grand Jury Prize for Best U.S. Narrative Feature.
Straight Up is a 2019 independent film written, produced, and directed by James Sweeney. Sweeney stars in the film with Katie Findlay, Dana Drori, James Scully, Tracie Thoms, Betsy Brandt, and Randall Park. The film premiered July 23, 2019 at Outfest, with limited distribution by Strand Releasing beginning February 28, 2020.
Shiva Baby is a 2020 American comedy film written and directed by Emma Seligman, in her feature directorial debut. The film stars Rachel Sennott as Danielle, a directionless young bisexual Jewish woman who attends a shiva with her parents, Joel and Debbie. Other attendees include her successful ex-girlfriend Maya, and her sugar daddy Max with his wife Kim and their screaming baby. It also features Jackie Hoffman, Deborah Offner, Rita Gardner and Sondra James in supporting roles.
The Frameline Audience Award – Best Feature is an award of the San Francisco Frameline Film Festival. Since the festival's inception in 1984 the Best Feature Film has been awarded by the festival's audience selection.
Cubby is a 2019 American fantasy comedy-drama film directed by Mark Blane and Ben Mankoff and starring Blane, Patricia Richardson, Jeanine Serralles, Peter Y. Kim, and Joseph Seuffert.
Amanda Kramer is a director, screenwriter, and producer. She is best known for the films Ladyworld (2018) and Please Baby Please (2022), both of which she wrote and directed.
