Once again, Happy Pride Month! Last week we featured a list of the 10 Best Documentary Portraits of Lgbt Culture, films that celebrate the lives and loves of their diverse subjects. Today’s list is entitled “The Best Documentaries About Lgbt History.” What’s the difference? The distinction is, in a word, politics. Obviously when dealing with something like Lgbt civil rights, culture and politics are often very closely connected. Yet the following 10 films are more consciously political, narratives of the struggle for freedom and equality over the course of history. It might be a misnomer to call all of them “activist” documentaries, and the “issue film” moniker seems reductive. Therefore, we’ll call them history films, built from a century-long struggle against discrimination. They feature the earliest days of the Gay Liberation movement in the United States, the fight to respond to the AIDS epidemic, and the international scope of the pursuit Lgbt civil rights around the...
- 6/27/2014
- by Nonfics.com
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Canadian filmmaker and doctor Tarek Loubani refuse food to protest their detention in a Cairo jail.
Canadian filmmaker John Greyson and emergency room physician Tarek Loubani have informed friends and supporters through their Egyptian lawyers that they will be refusing food beginning this week [Sept 16] to protest the “arbitrary nature” of their detention by Egyptian authorities.
Greyson and Loubani were travelling through Cairo on their way to Gaza - Greyson prepping a film project and Loubani working on a medical aid project - when they were detained in Cairo’s Tora prison.
They have been held there for more than 30 days, during which time Egyptian officials have not provided any reason for their ongoing detention.
Greyson and Loubani’s detention could be extended up to two years without formal charges being laid according to new emergency measures put in place in Egypt.
The filmmaker’s sister said in a statement: “We know that they did not take the...
Canadian filmmaker John Greyson and emergency room physician Tarek Loubani have informed friends and supporters through their Egyptian lawyers that they will be refusing food beginning this week [Sept 16] to protest the “arbitrary nature” of their detention by Egyptian authorities.
Greyson and Loubani were travelling through Cairo on their way to Gaza - Greyson prepping a film project and Loubani working on a medical aid project - when they were detained in Cairo’s Tora prison.
They have been held there for more than 30 days, during which time Egyptian officials have not provided any reason for their ongoing detention.
Greyson and Loubani’s detention could be extended up to two years without formal charges being laid according to new emergency measures put in place in Egypt.
The filmmaker’s sister said in a statement: “We know that they did not take the...
- 9/17/2013
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Canadian filmmaker and doctor Tarek Loubani refuse food to protest their detention in a Cairo jail.
Canadian filmmaker John Greyson and emergency room physician Tarek Loubani have informed friends and supporters through their Egyptian lawyers that they will be refusing food beginning this week [Sept 16] to protest the “arbitrary nature” of their detention by Egyptian authorities.
Greyson and Loubani were travelling through Cairo on their way to Gaza - Greyson prepping a film project and Loubani working on a medical aid project - when they were detained in Cairo’s Tora prison.
They have been held there for more than 30 days, during which time Egyptian officials have not provided any reason for their ongoing detention.
Greyson and Loubani’s detention could be extended up to two years without formal charges being laid according to new emergency measures put in place in Egypt.
The filmmaker’s sister said in a statement: “We know that they did not take the...
Canadian filmmaker John Greyson and emergency room physician Tarek Loubani have informed friends and supporters through their Egyptian lawyers that they will be refusing food beginning this week [Sept 16] to protest the “arbitrary nature” of their detention by Egyptian authorities.
Greyson and Loubani were travelling through Cairo on their way to Gaza - Greyson prepping a film project and Loubani working on a medical aid project - when they were detained in Cairo’s Tora prison.
They have been held there for more than 30 days, during which time Egyptian officials have not provided any reason for their ongoing detention.
Greyson and Loubani’s detention could be extended up to two years without formal charges being laid according to new emergency measures put in place in Egypt.
The filmmaker’s sister said in a statement: “We know that they did not take the...
- 9/17/2013
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
The annual New Directors / New Films showcase organized by the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center has selected as one of this year’s films Amer, the feature film debut by Montreal transgressive filmmaking duo Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani. The film will screen twice during the program:
April 2
9:15 p.m.
Film Society of Lincoln Center
April 3
2:00 p.m.
Museum of Modern Art
So far, 2010 is looking to be a huge year for Cattet and Forzani. Prior to Nd/Nf in April, Amer will screen in March at both the Boston Underground Film Festival and at SXSW. This is already after having a very successful 2009, where the film played at the Lausanne Underground Film Festival and has won awards at the Lund Fantastisk Film Festival, Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival, Festival Nouveau Cinema de Montreal and more.
Amer is a tribute to the...
April 2
9:15 p.m.
Film Society of Lincoln Center
April 3
2:00 p.m.
Museum of Modern Art
So far, 2010 is looking to be a huge year for Cattet and Forzani. Prior to Nd/Nf in April, Amer will screen in March at both the Boston Underground Film Festival and at SXSW. This is already after having a very successful 2009, where the film played at the Lausanne Underground Film Festival and has won awards at the Lund Fantastisk Film Festival, Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival, Festival Nouveau Cinema de Montreal and more.
Amer is a tribute to the...
- 2/28/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Intriguing concept… a documentary-opera… watch the clip below first and read underneath:
In 1999, South African AIDS activist Zackie Achmat went on a treatment strike, refusing to take his pills until they were widely available to all South Africans. This symbolic act became a cause celebre, helping build his group Treatment Action Campaign into a national movement – yet with each passing month, Zackie grew sicker…
Fig Trees is labeled a documentary-opera directed by Canadian filmmaker John Greyson, about AIDS activists Tim McCaskell in Toronto and Zackie Achmat in Capetown, as narrated by an albino squirrel, an amputee busker and St. Teresa of Avila. Telling the story of Zackie’s treatment strike in song, and the larger story of the fight for pills on two continents, and across two decades, Fig Trees performs musical and political inversion on the music and words of Gertrude Stein’s 1934 avant-garde classic Four Saints in Three Acts.
In 1999, South African AIDS activist Zackie Achmat went on a treatment strike, refusing to take his pills until they were widely available to all South Africans. This symbolic act became a cause celebre, helping build his group Treatment Action Campaign into a national movement – yet with each passing month, Zackie grew sicker…
Fig Trees is labeled a documentary-opera directed by Canadian filmmaker John Greyson, about AIDS activists Tim McCaskell in Toronto and Zackie Achmat in Capetown, as narrated by an albino squirrel, an amputee busker and St. Teresa of Avila. Telling the story of Zackie’s treatment strike in song, and the larger story of the fight for pills on two continents, and across two decades, Fig Trees performs musical and political inversion on the music and words of Gertrude Stein’s 1934 avant-garde classic Four Saints in Three Acts.
- 12/17/2009
- by Tambay
- ShadowAndAct
John Greyson has, in effect lit a match to a highly inflammable emotional underbrush (taking the lead from the great filmmaker and btw splinter-Trotskyite-party-member Ken Loach) which now has festival organizers and filmmakers scrambling to put out brushfires before this becomes a conflagration on a par with L.A.'s recent fires.
Irresponsibly, with poorly thought out rationalization, he is inflaming deeply held emotions which can untrack not only Tiff but all consecutive festivals and the entire community of artists with an issue which has been causing wars for the last 5,000+ years.
Filmmakers' and artists' ideas and passions belong on the screen allowing the rest of the public to share well thought out and well planned works which can be discussed, reviled or beloved on a case by case basis.
This action endangers not only the public, as the man in the theater who yells “Fire!” but also the areas of artistic freedom,...
Irresponsibly, with poorly thought out rationalization, he is inflaming deeply held emotions which can untrack not only Tiff but all consecutive festivals and the entire community of artists with an issue which has been causing wars for the last 5,000+ years.
Filmmakers' and artists' ideas and passions belong on the screen allowing the rest of the public to share well thought out and well planned works which can be discussed, reviled or beloved on a case by case basis.
This action endangers not only the public, as the man in the theater who yells “Fire!” but also the areas of artistic freedom,...
- 9/1/2009
- by Sydney@SydneysBuzz.com (Sydney)
- Sydney's Buzz
There are 56 definitions offered for the word “cover” in the Random House Unabridged Dictionary (2nd edition, 1993), with the 13th definition applied to journalism (where a journalist is assigned to “cover” a story) and the 51st definition applied to music (where a musician is said to “cover” another’s song). Immediately following the musical definition, is one for mathematics wherein a “cover” refers to “a collection of sets having the property that a given set is contained in the union of the sets in the collection.” That 52nd definition—along with its journalistic and musical variants—could equally apply to John Greyson’s experimental short Covered, which is at once intricately journalistic, musical and mathematic.
Originally slated in Tiff’s Short Cuts Canada program and billed as “an inspired experimental documentary on the violent closing of the first Queer Sarajevo Festival”, Greyson has pulled Covered from the official selection at Tiff...
Originally slated in Tiff’s Short Cuts Canada program and billed as “an inspired experimental documentary on the violent closing of the first Queer Sarajevo Festival”, Greyson has pulled Covered from the official selection at Tiff...
- 8/31/2009
- by Michael Guillen
- Screen Anarchy
More for Vanguard, Real to Reel, Special Presentations, Galas, Short cuts, and Contemporary World Cinema which includes the World premier of Reginald Harkema's latest, Leslie, My Name is Evil. That link has the 2nd promo trailer (we used to have two) but we were asked by Reggie to remove the first. We also have Sook-Yin Lee's Year of the Carnivore which I've been keeping an eye on for some time. Also playing is The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.
Check out the full list of added films after the break!
Canada First!
Year of the Carnivore Sook-Yin Lee, BC
World Premiere
Year of the Carnivore is a romantic-comedy-drama about a girl with an unrequited crush on a boy who thinks she's bad in bed, so she goes out to get more 'experience.'
All Fall Down Philip Hoffman, On
North American Premiere
Local legend Philip Hoffman's formally adventurous...
Check out the full list of added films after the break!
Canada First!
Year of the Carnivore Sook-Yin Lee, BC
World Premiere
Year of the Carnivore is a romantic-comedy-drama about a girl with an unrequited crush on a boy who thinks she's bad in bed, so she goes out to get more 'experience.'
All Fall Down Philip Hoffman, On
North American Premiere
Local legend Philip Hoffman's formally adventurous...
- 8/4/2009
- QuietEarth.us
Canadian filmmaker John Greyson (above with festival supporter Laura Righi) was at the 24 Torino Glbt Film Festival to receive a special award for his latest effort, the part-documentary, part-fiction Fig Trees, about the struggles of AIDS activists Tim McCaskell of Toronto and Zackie Achmat of Cape Town, as they fight governments and the pharmaceutical industry for better access to antiviral drugs. Fig Trees won the Teddy Award for best documentary at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival. As per the Torino festival’s release, "Greyson hopes that his presence in Torino will help the festival audience to share the Spanish and European Union opinions (including the possibility to send 1 million condoms to the countries affected by this disease) in opposition to the pope’s recent declarations." Chinese filmmaker Shen Weiwei (with festival programmer Cosimo Santoro, left) at the world premiere of his directorial debut Fire in Silence. "The idea of this film...
- 4/27/2009
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
In Haaretz.com, Cnaan Liphshiz discusses the reactions to Toronto-based filmmaker John Greyson’s refusal to attend the 2009 Tel Aviv International Lgbt film festival, which runs June 23-27. Below are a couple of brief quotes from Liphshiz’s piece: "’What Greyson has done is an act of violence both against Israeli gays as well as [gay] Palestinians, for whom this festival is a rare ray of light,’ said Yair Hochner, the festival’s Israeli-born organizer and an internationally-acclaimed director. Greyson told Anglo File this week: ‘With ongoing violations by Israel of Palestinian human rights and given the specific content of my film, screening it in Israel would be hypocrisy.’ The film, Fig Trees, deals with a Canadian AIDS patient’s refusal to take drugs until they were made available in South Africa." … "In his letter, Greyson, 49, cited the ‘cultural boycott’ that ‘worked in South Africa’s case, and led directly to sweeping changes.
- 4/17/2009
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Berlin -- Richard Loncraine's "My One and Only," a '50s-era comedy starring Renee Zellweger and Kevin Bacon, was squeezed into the competition lineup for this year's Berlin International Film Festival, barely a week before the event kicks off.
Zellweger plays a glamorous single mom on the hunt for a rich man to foot the bill for her and her sons' lifestyle. Produced by Merv Griffith Entertainment and Ray Gun Prods., "My One and Only" will have its world premiere in Berlin. Essential Entertainment is handling international sales.
Berlin also added Lone Scherfig's Sundance favorite "An Education" with Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina and Emma Thompson and Davis Guggenheim's music documentary "It Might Get Loud" for its Berlinale Special Galas, ensuring the films will get the red carpet treatment without any of the pressure of competition.
All three films should give an added boost of star power to...
Zellweger plays a glamorous single mom on the hunt for a rich man to foot the bill for her and her sons' lifestyle. Produced by Merv Griffith Entertainment and Ray Gun Prods., "My One and Only" will have its world premiere in Berlin. Essential Entertainment is handling international sales.
Berlin also added Lone Scherfig's Sundance favorite "An Education" with Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina and Emma Thompson and Davis Guggenheim's music documentary "It Might Get Loud" for its Berlinale Special Galas, ensuring the films will get the red carpet treatment without any of the pressure of competition.
All three films should give an added boost of star power to...
- 1/27/2009
- by By Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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