Nancy Kates is an independent filmmaker based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She directed Regarding Susan Sontag, a feature documentary about the late essayist, novelist, director and activist. Through archival footage, interviews, still photographs and images from popular culture, the film reflects the boldness of Sontag’s work and the cultural importance of her thought, and received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Foundation for Jewish Culture and the Sundance Documentary Film Program.
Small Town Gay Bar is a 2006 documentary film directed by Malcolm Ingram that focuses on two gay bars in the rural deep Southeast United States, one in Shannon, Mississippi, and one in Meridian, Mississippi. The documentary was produced by View Askew Productions with Kevin Smith serving as executive producer.
Sridhar Rangayan is an Indian filmmaker who has made films with special focus on queer subjects. His queer films, The Pink Mirror and Yours Emotionally, 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.
Arthur Dong is an American filmmaker and author whose work centers on Asia America and anti-gay prejudice. He was raised in San Francisco, California, graduating from Galileo High School in June 1971. He received his BA in film from San Francisco State University and also holds a Directing Fellow Certificate from the American Film Institute Center for Advanced Film Studies. In 2007, SFSU named Dong its Alumnus of the year “for his continued success in the challenging arena of independent documentary filmmaking and his longstanding commitment to social justice."
The Way OUT West Film Fest (WOWFF), formerly the Southwest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (SWGLFF), is a gay and lesbian film festival founded in 2003. It started in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and has since expanded into Santa Fe. Films and shorts from around the world are showcased in a number of theaters in both Albuquerque and Santa Fe concurrently. Films are often followed by after-parties at the areas top social clubs among other events, including question and answer sessions after the screenings of select films. The festival runs from late September to Early October each year, just prior to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. The festival is produced by Closet Cinema—a non-profit group based in Albuquerque, whose goal is to highlight the LGBT experience through hosting the SWGLFF among other events.
Inlaws & Outlaws is a documentary by filmmaker and oral historian Drew Emery that weaves together the true stories of couples and singles—both gay and straight—to create a collective narrative of stories of love, loss and belonging. The film was produced by Larry Schlessinger, Lisa Halpern, and Emery for the True Stories Project, Emery's production company.
Freeheld is a 2007 documentary film directed by Cynthia Wade. It chronicles the story of Laurel Hester in her fight against the Monmouth County, New Jersey Board of Chosen Freeholders to give her earned pension benefits to her partner, Stacie. On February 24, 2008, it won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject. The documentary also won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007.
Dzi Croquettes is a 2009 Brazilian documentary film directed by Tatiana Issa and Raphael Alvarez about the dance and theater group of the same name.
Training Rules is a 2009 American documentary co-produced and co-directed by Dee Mosbacher and Fawn Yacker. It is narrated by Diana Nyad.
Tami Kashia Gold is a documentary filmmaker, visual artist and educator. She is also a professor at Hunter College of the City University of New York in the Department of Film and Media Studies.
Sebastiane Award is a prize delivered in September, since 2000, to a film or documentary screened during the San Sebastián International Film Festival that best reflects the values and reality of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people.
Pageant is a 2008 documentary film directed and produced together by Ron Davis and Stewart Halpern. The film explored the behind-the-scenes dramas and realities of the 34th Miss Gay America Contest held in 2004. The film's central theme was the universal desire to be beautiful, noticed and chosen. The film garnered 10 film festival awards before airing on the Sundance Channel in 2010.
Get Happy is a 2008 documentary film by Mark Payne.
Wish Me Away is a 2011 documentary film directed by Bobbie Birleffi and Beverly Kopf. Winner of 12 film festival awards, it is about the coming out of the country music singer and gay rights activist Chely Wright. In May 2010, she had become the first major country music performer to publicly come out as gay.
Minsk Pride — gay pride in Minsk (Belarus). This is a festival in support of tolerance for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people in Belarus.
A Sinner in Mecca is a 2015 documentary film from director Parvez Sharma. The film chronicles Sharma's Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia as an openly gay Muslim. The film premiered at the 2015 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival to critical acclaim as well as negative controversies. The film opened in theaters in the US on September 4, 2015, and is a New York Times Critics' Pick.
Marion Lipschutz is an American documentary producer, writer, and director. Lipschutz has directed and produced award-winning documentaries, including BEI BEI, The Education of Shelby Knox and Young Lakota.
Aban and Khorshid is a 2014 American gay drama film written and directed by Darwin Serink.
Johnny Symons is a documentary filmmaker focusing on LGBT cultural and political issues. He is a professor in the Cinema Department at San Francisco State University, where he runs the documentary program and is the director and co-founder of the Queer Cinema Project. He received his BA from Brown University and his MA in documentary production from Stanford University. He has served as a Fellow in the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program.
Joseph Hall Wilson is an American film director and producer, best known for documentaries and impact campaigns that explore oppression and empowerment among gender and sexual minority communities. He has received an Emmy, GLAAD Media and several film festival awards, and his work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Ford Foundation, ITVS and Pacific Islanders in Communications.
