Tag: Yony Leyser

Go on tour with the drag wrestling collective ‘Chokehole’ in this fabulous documentary

Chokehole: Drag Wrestlers do Deutschland tells the story of how one disenfranchised group of queer performers defeated all the odds to create a wildly compelling theatrical show.

One hot summer night in New Orleans, a popular drag collective decided to stage a wresting night. Dressing as their vibrant alter-egos, they proceeded to beat the living daylights out each other while the audience collectively lost their minds. That night, the wrestling collective ‘Chokehole’ was born.

From Yony Leyser, the filmmaker behind Desire Will Set You Free and Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution, this new 22-minute documentary follows the group as they take their show to Germany.

The film observes the artists both in and out of drag, sharing their larger-than-life and theatrical alter egos while displaying the unique vulnerabilities that lie behind each character. This film explores their loud, vibrant personas alongside their heart-breaking personal stories – and the adversity they’ve had to overcome.

We learn how each character copes with love, sex, transitions, post-trauma and socioeconomics while getting a glimpse into their fantastical, vividly realized world – which is as much an escape for the artists as it is for the audience.

Watch a short teaser trailer for Chokehole: Drag Wrestlers do Deutschland below. The documentary is now streaming on Dekkoo.

Pride Month Spotlight: Queercore

Started in the 1980s as a fabricated movement intended to ‘punk’ the punk scene, ‘Queercore’ quickly became a real-life cultural community of LGBTQ music and movie-making revolutionaries.

From the start of the pseudo-movement to the widespread rise of pop artists who used queer identity to push back against gay assimilation and homophobic punk culture, the poignant new documentary Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution is just that: a how-to-do-it guide for the next generation of queer radicals.

Directed by Yony Leyser, this doc features an impressively extensive participant list Included are Bruce LaBruce, G.B. Jones, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, John Waters, Justin Vivian Bond, Lynn Breedlove, Silas Howard, Pansy Division, Penny Arcade, Kathleen Hanna, Kim Gordon, Deke Elash, Tom Jennings, Team Dresch, and many, many more.

Watch the trailer for Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution below. One of our Pride Month selections, the film is now available to watch on Dekkoo.

Sh*t gets radical in Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution

Started in the 1980s as a fabricated movement intended to ‘punk’ the punk scene, ‘Queercore’ quickly became a real-life cultural community of LGBTQ music and movie-making revolutionaries.

From the start of the pseudo-movement to the widespread rise of pop artists who used queer identity to push back against gay assimilation and homophobic punk culture, the poignant new documentary Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution is just that: a how-to-do-it guide for the next generation of queer radicals.

Directed by Yony Leyser, this doc features an impressively extensive participant list Included are Bruce LaBruce, G.B. Jones, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, John Waters, Justin Vivian Bond, Lynn Breedlove, Silas Howard, Pansy Division, Penny Arcade, Kathleen Hanna, Kim Gordon, Deke Elash, Tom Jennings, Team Dresch, and many, many more.

Watch the trailer for Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution below. The film is now available on Dekkoo.

DEKKOO DISPATCH 006 – “DESIRE WILL SET YOU FREE”

Title – ‘Desire Will Set You Free‘

Director – Yony Leyser

Starring – Yony Leyser, Tim-Fabian Hoffmann, Chloe Griffin, Amber Benson

Release Date – May 5, 2016

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Christopher Isherwood once wrote of his time in Berlin, ‘I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.’ The director of ‘Desire Will Set You Free‘, Yony Leyser, who also co-wrote and stars in the film absolutely aligns with that principle
in this hybrid fiction-doc combo. After the wall came down in 1989 Berlin slowly started becoming the queer melting pot it was once famous for due to the growth of hedonistic techno clubs in large abandoned warehouses. ‘Desire Will Set You Free‘ documents this time around 2010-2013 when Berlin became the hip place for young people to move to for its cheap housing, plentiful parties, and sex positive atmosphere.

The film follows a group of queer friends led by Ezra (a Palestinian/Israeli writer) and Cat (a very fun and dominant bisexual) as they move through the clubs (and doing lots of drugs in said clubs), parks (and having lots of sex in said parks), and architecture (just architecture! get your heads outta the gutter. Jeez.) of modern Berlin. Along the way Ezra falls for Sasha, a Russian hustler who’s dealing with confusion regarding his gender identity.

The movie features an uber-large cast of famous cameos: Amber Benson (Tara on ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’), ‘Godmother of Punk’ Nina Hagen as Oracle, cult musician and performance artist Peaches, along with Rosa Von Praunheim, Rummelsnuff, Blood Orange, and Einstuerzende Neubauten and Blixa Bargeld (formerly of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds).

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Watch it with: Your cool hipster friends

Mix it with: Weed, Cocaine, and MDMA

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