Category: Gay Rights

‘Studio One Forever’ takes a deep dive into a unique time and place in queer history

From 1974 to 1993, Studio One and its adjoining live music venue, The Backlot, became symbols of hope and community for gay men during tumultuous times.

Amidst the rise of gay rights, disco’s heyday and the devastating AIDS crisis, the club offered sanctuary from rampant homophobia and police oppression. Studio One was where legends like Chita Rivera and Eartha Kitt performed, and rising stars like Roseanne Barr and Rosie O’Donnell ignited their careers.

Through personal accounts, the new documentary Studio One Forever delves into the nightclub’s history, examining how the backdrop of a progressing gay liberation clashed with 1980s conservatism and the escalating AIDS nightmare.

A testament to an important era, this unique and insightful new doc from director Marc Saltarelli immortalizes the club’s legacy for future generations.

Watch the trailer for Studio One Forever below. The documentary is now streaming on Dekkoo.

‘Avant-Drag!’ gets intimate with a tight-knit group of Athens-based drag performers

With police brutality and homophobic violence against LGBTQ+ individuals in Greece on the rise, the new documentary Avant-Drag! offers an exhilarating look at ten Athenian drag performers who deconstruct gender, nationalism, belonging, and identity while facing transphobia and racism.

As entertaining as it is thought-provoking, this new film from Greek director Fil Ieropoulos challenges societal norms and reshapes perceptions about LGBTQ+ culture by capturing the intimate lives of a tightly-knit group of drag performers, proving that being ‘othered’ has never felt so familiar.

The film captures the vibrancy of Athens’ underground drag scene and its role in pushing boundaries and expressing dissident identities. It goes beyond the mainstream representations of drag, focusing on more radical, explicitly political, and raw performances.

Juxtaposing magical realism, political commentary, and outrageous performances, Avant-Drag! is a love letter to Athens – a city that can be as oppressive as it can be a refuge for art freaks and a hot-bed for creativity.

Watch the trailer for Avant-Drag! below. The documentary is now streaming on Dekkoo.

‘Born for You’ tells the incredibly moving true story of Italy’s first adoptive gay parent

From Italian director Fabio Mollo, Born for You tells the beautiful and touching true story of Luca (Pierluigi Gigante), a gay, single, Catholic man who, in 2017, adopted Alba, a child with Down syndrome who had been left in hospital shortly after being born.

Thirty heterosexual families rejected her before the court decided to entrust her to Luca. With this new precedent set, the legal foster care register for single gay men was inaugurated in Italy.

Luca may have been the first single gay parent in Italy to successfully adopt a daughter, but this was not a charitable gesture or a fight against the system… he simply wanted to start a family.

Beautifully shot and powerfully acted, the film weaves between Luca’s present-day struggles and flashbacks to his youth, creating a deeply intimate portrait of love, loss and the fight for equality and acceptance.

Born for You is a profound reflection on the transformative and triumphant power of love and the potential of LGBTQ+ families everywhere.

Watch the trailer for Born for You below. The film is now streaming on Dekkoo.

‘Small Town Gay Bar’ director Malcolm Ingram heads back down South for ‘Southern Pride’

Director Malcolm Ingram first explored Mississippi gay bars on film with his award-winning 2006 documentary Small Town Gay Bar. In 2017, after the first election of Donald Trump emboldened anti-LGBTQ hatred in the region, he returned for the moving follow-up Southern Pride.

Following Lynn and Shawn, two different bar owners in Biloxi and Hattiesburg, the film shows what it takes to fight for equality while trying to keep the bills paid and the drinks flowing.

The film’s subjects decide to hold each of their respective cities’ first official Pride celebrations as a rebuke to the Trump administration. They’re soon faced with homophobia, racism, and fundraising fiascos. But the power of community should never be underestimated – and when everyone comes together to make things happen, they manage to show the rest of the state what Southern Pride truly means.

Watch the trailer for Southern Pride below. The documentary is now streaming on Dekkoo.

The landmark documentary ‘Before Stonewall’ is now available on Dekkoo

In 1969 the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village, leading to three nights of rioting by the city’s LGBTQ+ community. With this outpouring of courage and unity, the gay liberation movement had begun.

Made in 1984 and released to great acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival in 1985, during the harrowing early years of the AIDS crisis, the landmark documentary Before Stonewall pried open the closet door – shining a spotlight on the experiences of queer Americans throughout the 20th century and setting free dramatic untold stories of survival, love, persecution and resistance.

Revealing and often humorous, this celebrated film relives the emotionally-charged sparking of today’s gay rights movement, from the events that led to the fevered 1969 riots to many other milestones in the brave fight for acceptance.

Experience the fascinating and unforgettable, decade-by-decade history of gay life in America through eye-opening historical footage and amazing interviews with those who lived – and fought – through an often brutal closeted history.

Watch the trailer for Before Stonewall. The documentary is now available on Dekkoo.

‘Queendom’ follows a talented queer artist who literally risks her life on the streets of Moscow

Both inspiring and nail-biting, the new documentary Queendom shines a much-deserved spotlight on Gena Marvin, a young queer artist from a small town in Russia who dazzles in the otherworldly costumes she crafts from tape and found materials.

As Putin’s government increasingly encroaches on the rights of LGBTQ+ communities, Gena takes to the streets of Moscow, staging provocative performances that challenge the status quo.

All she wants to do change people’s perception of beauty and queerness and bring attention to the harassment of the LGBTQ+ community. But her artistic activism comes at a price as political tensions in Russia escalate, jeopardizing her own personal freedom.

An Oscar-shortlisted doc from director Agniia Galdanova, Queendom is not so much a portrait as it is a direct cinematic extension of Gena’s inner universe, delving into her extravagant subconscious creations and her search for free expression while illustrating how unleashing one’s inner world can create ripples of positive change.

Watch the trailer for Queendom below. The documentary is now streaming on Dekkoo.