Australian filmmaker Jordan Bryon has been living and working as a journalist and filmmaker in Afghanistan for more than six years. After the departure of US forces, he stays to document Afghan life under the male-centric Taliban leadership. With his colleague, Teddy, he heads to a Taliban stronghold in the north-west of the country, shortly after he started transitioning. If the Taliban knew he was trans, they would likely kill him. It’s a chaotic time, for the country and for Jordan, as he navigates his transformation and looks to the future.
Immediately after the US pullout from Afghanistan, Taliban forces occupied the Hollywood Gate complex, which is claimed to be a former CIA base in Kabul.
The Kabul National Museum, once known as the "face of Afghanistan," was destroyed in 1993. We filmed the most important cultural treasures of the still-intact museum in 1988: ancient Greco-Roman art and antiquitied of Hellenistic civilization, as well as Buddhist sculpture that was said to have mythology--the art of Gandhara, Bamiyan, and Shotorak among them. After the fall of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1992, some seventy percent of the contents of the museum was destroyed, stolen, or smuggled overseas to Japan and other countries. The movement to return these items is also touched upon. The footage in this video represents that only film documentation of the Kabul Museum ever made.
In 1968, Gordon Langley Hall claimed he was a woman misdiagnosed as male at birth because of a genital defect. To correct this, Gordon underwent one of the first sex reassignment surgeries in the United States. Her subsequent marriage to a black auto mechanic and the mysterious birth of their daughter Natasha sent Charleston, SC society into a fury and cast serious doubts on the truth behind Dawn’s story.
Filmed over five years, we follow Lily Jones, 20, as she transitions from male to female, leaves her seaside home for the city, undergoes gender reassignment surgery and finds love.
A documentary film depicting five intimate portraits of migrants who fled their country of origin to seek refuge in France and find a space of freedom where they can fully experience their sexuality and their sexual identity: Giovanna, woman transgender of Colombian origin, Roman, Russian transgender man, Cate, Ugandan lesbian mother, Yi Chen, young Chinese gay man…
In this film, Laerte conjugates the body in the feminine, and scrutinizes concepts and prejudices. Not in search of an identity, but in search of un-identities. Laerte creates and sends creatures to face reality in the fictional world of comic strips as a vanguard of the self. And, on the streets, the one who becomes the fiction of a real character. Laerte, of all the bodies, and of none, complicates all binaries. In following Laerte, this documentary chooses to clothe the nudity beyond the skin we inhabit.
Lies can kill. Transgender Nuclear Suicide Sojourner is an exploration of propaganda, lies, and the overwhelming urge to end it all.
Danish soldiers are sent to Afghanistan in 2009 for 6 months, to help stabilize the country against the Taliban. They're stationed on Armadillo military base in Helman province. Unlike other war movies, this is the real deal – no actors.
Luca longs for his lost love; Thalles for a name change; Raul to be a better person. They all share one element: they were born as women.
In Córdoba, far from the Argentine capital, the end of a military regime promises a spring that is all too brief. “La Delpi” is the only survivor of a group of friends who are transgender women and drag-queens, who began to die of aids in the late 80s. In a Catholic and conservative city, the Grupo Kalas made their weapons and trenches out of improvised dresses and lip-syncing. Today the images of unique and unknown footage are not only a farewell letter, but a manifesto to friendship.
The story of the last months of the 20-year war in Afghanistan through the intimate relationship between American Green Berets and the Afghan officers they trained.
According to the official history of Afghanistan, ruthless destruction has always prevailed over art and creation; but there is another tale to be told, the forgotten account of a diverse and progressive country, seen through the lens of innovative filmmakers, a story that survives thanks to a few brave Afghans, a small but very passionate group that secretly fought to save a huge film archive that was constantly menaced by war and religious fanaticism.
A truly major work, I Don’t Know observes the relationship between a lesbian and a transgender person who prefers to be identified somewhere in between male and female, in an expression of personal ambiguity suggested by the film’s title. This nonfiction film – an unusual, partly staged work of semi-verité – is the first of Spheeris’s films to fully embrace what would become her characteristic documentary style: probing, intimate, uncompromising. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2014.
Vikken is transgender. He’s about to take hormones for the first time. He records his voice that will disappear, and summons the figures of the past from all over the world for an intimate dialogue with himself.
In the 50s and 60s, deep in the American countryside at the foot of the Catskills, a small wooden house with a barn behind it was home to the first clandestine network of cross-dressers. Diane and Kate are now 80 years old. At the time, they were men and part of this secret organization. Today, they relate this forgotten but essential chapter of the early days of trans-identity. It is a story full of noise and fury, rich in extraordinary characters, including the famous Susanna, who had the courage to create this refuge that came to be known as Casa Susanna.
Musician, octogenarian and transgender activist Beverly Glenn-Copeland and his wife navigate the implications of the former’s dementia diagnosis, contemplating high stakes, complex decisions about care and wellbeing while they embark on a mission to preserve his artistic legacy.
In the summer of 2001 the Taliban strategically captured 24 Shelter Now International Aid hostages that captured the attention of the world for more than three months. With representatives from the United States, Australia, Germany and Afghanistan, the Taliban set out to create an insurance policy against the pending attacks of September 11th. What transpired through their story was an overwhelming journey of faith, grace and endurance. Based on the true story as told by the captives, Kabul 24 captures the gantlet of their 105 days in captivity and the cruel treatment of the Muslim co-workers at the hands of the Taliban who accused them of converting to Christianity. Revisit their journey from the grueling interrogation to their sham "trial" before the Taliban Supreme Court, to the dangers endured during the bombing of Kabul and a crushing sense that the world had abandoned them.
Ludruk Tobong artists are trying to maintain the arts that support their livelihood and are also trying to eliminate the negative stigma of trans women through cultural media.
Two men undertake a thought-provoking journey to parenthood. Not by adoption or surrogacy, but by Frankie, a trans man, carrying their baby. Made with support from NZ on Air.
Directors Hetherington and Junger spend a year with the 2nd Battalion of the United States Army located in one of Afghanistan's most dangerous valleys. The documentary provides insight and empathy on how to win the battle through hard work, deadly gunfights and mutual friendships while the unit must push back the Taliban.