The Codes of Gender

Arguing that advertising not only sells things, but also ideas about the world, media scholar Sut Jhally offers a blistering analysis of commercial culture's inability to let go of reactionary gender representations. Jhally's starting point is the breakthrough work of the late sociologist Erving Goffman, whose 1959 book The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life prefigured the growing field of performance studies. Jhally applies Goffman's analysis of the body in print advertising to hundreds of print ads today, uncovering an astonishing pattern of regressive and destructive gender codes. By looking beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that tend to focus on either biology or objectification, The Codes of Gender offers important insights into the social construction of masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms.

My Film with Andrei, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Document a Sex Party.

A crypto-trader and an ex-clergyman travel to Berlin to throw a sex party. Filmmaker Ayoto Ataraxia documents them and their sex-positive community with a phone during the week leading up to the event, discussing sex and life. But will they cum?

The Great American Lie

Examines how a US value system built on the extreme masculine ideals of money, power and control has glorified individualism, institutionalized inequality, and undermined the ability of most Americans to achieve the American Dream.

Homosexual

In this funny and erotic mockumentary, director Toby Ross takes an out of the box look at homosexuals - dividing them into two major groups: those who are into it for the sex and those who are looking for relationships. The live reenactments are an eyeful and it goes through all the levels and strands of gay guys. Out and proud, fringe homos, closet cases by design, country fags, and more.

The Lost Boys: Searching for Manhood

A documentary in which 5 men describe their experiences with gender dysphoria as they wrestled with feelings of inadequacy as men, and their ultimate pursuit to find peace in their natural bodies.

Adonis

A hard-hitting documentary that tackles head-on a controversial but increasingly alarming subject: young men's obsession with the perfect body, and the use of performance-enhancing drugs to achieve it. Once the preserve of top-level athletes, the use of anabolic steroids has become endemic among teenagers and young men with a passion for bodybuilding. Daring to tackle head-on the taboo of male beauty standards, Adonis offers a field investigation into the heart of this muscle-building machine, questioning the reasons behind and the physical, psychological and social risks of this race to the perfect body. As he stages his own vulnerability, the filmmaker lifts the veil on the scale of the public health crisis that is looming.

Retiro

Marina and Perla join thousands of women on an annual Catholic pilgrimage. Perla's coming of age accentuates a generational divide as she struggles to assert her independence as a woman.

Pornography: Andrea Dworkin

Radical feminist Andrea Dworkin's expose on the pornography industry.

Un Amor en Rebeldía

At the end of the seventies, Yan María Castro became one of the founders of the first group of lesbians in Mexico. In a context of discrimination and repression, she and her companions organize a political movement to gain their place in society.

No Way Back: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care

Six young people discuss the "gender affirming" medical care they received for gender dysphoria and how they subsequently came to believe this was the wrong treatment.

Man Made

In Man Made, Sunny tries to find out what society's ideas regarding masculinity entails. Does testosteron define your masculinity? Can men be victims? And do men suffer under these ideas? In the twentieth century, feminists have fought for the freedom of women and subsequently their emancipation. Is now the time for the emancipation of men, are they next to be set free?

a small island

Cicerone

A young aspiring screenwriter takes a ride along to research his script. But this is no ordinary ride along: he’s researching for a gangster film. And he may have bitten off more than he can chew.

مُبارك مُبارك النسيان

BLESSED BLESSED OBLIVION weaves together a portrait of masculine performativity in East Jerusalem, as manifested in gyms, body shops and hair dressing parlors.

Do I Sound Gay?

What makes a voice “gay”? A breakup with his boyfriend sets journalist David Thorpe on a quest to unravel a linguistic mystery.

I'm a Porn Star: Gay 4 Pay

Welcome to the curious, surprising and always outspoken world of straight men who go Gay4Pay. Curiously, there is a disproportionate percentage of men working in gay porn who identify as straight. Why would a straight man do gay porn? What motivates him to try this or make a career of it? Why is there such keen interest and debate into the sexuality and personal lives of these men? And what does it say about us, the viewer that so much of gay porn is dominated by images of straight men?

Madonna: The Celebration Tour in Rio

Madonna celebrates her four-decade career in a special concert for over 1.6 million people at the Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro.

Parole de King!

Drag Queens and their cabaret shows are well-known in France, but Drag Kings still remain very much on the sidelines. Chriss Lag traveled all over France and met 22 Kings to bring them front and center.

पितृ, पुत्र और धर्मयुद्ध

Filmmaker Anand Patwardhan looks to history and psychology as he delves into the possible reasons behind the demolition of the Babri Mosque.

Le schiave esistono ancora

The film documents modern slave trade through a number of African countries, under dictatorship rule. The filming was conducted both in public places, and sometimes with the use of hidden cameras, for high impact scenes of nudity, sex, and violence - and a few surprises, as slaves made out of peregrins to Asia, and slave traders paid in traveller checks.