Smut Capital of America – (USA. 2011)

In 1970, San Francisco became the only city in the country to allow hardcore pornography, setting off a sexual gold rush and turning the „Smut Capital of America” into the first great battleground of the Sexual Revolution. Featuring John Waters, Kathryn Reed, Don Romesburg, Habib Carouba, Jeffrey Escoffier, Marty Rosenthal, Vaughn Kincey, John Karr

In the late 1960s, as the Sexual Revolution was first gaining steam, San Francisco was pushing the boundaries of what could be filmed and quickly became, according to the NY Times, ‘The Smut Capital of the United States.’ From shabby storefront theaters and live sex shows to the Erotic Film Festival, the City became ground zero in the fight over obscenity, as both local politicians and Federal law enforcement went to war with filmmakers and free-speech advocates. ‘Smut Capital’ talks to the theater owners, film producers and stars in an attempt to recreate a revolution that wasn’t televised, but screened.

2011 Tribeca Film Fest Official Selection
2011 Frameline Film Fest Official Selection
2011 NewFest Best Documentary Short

FRIDA KAHLO (1907-1954) Biography: A Woman in Rebellion – (USA, 2011)

Frida Kahlo de Rivera (July 6, 1907 – July 13, 1954; born Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón) was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán,  and perhaps best known for her self-portraits. Kahlo’s life began and ended in Mexico City, in her home known as the Blue House. She gave her birth date as July 7, 1910, but her birth certificate shows July 6, 1907. Kahlo had allegedly wanted the year of her birth to coincide with the year of the beginning of the Mexican revolution so that her life would begin with the birth of modern Mexico. At the age of six, Frida developed polio, which caused her right leg to appear much thinner than the other. It was to remain that way permanently.

Her work has been celebrated in Mexico as emblematic of national and indigenous tradition, and by feminists for its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form. Mexican culture and Amerindian cultural tradition are important in her work, which has been sometimes characterized as Naïve art or folk art.  Her work has also been described as „surrealist”, and in 1938 André Breton, principal initiator of the surrealist movement, described Kahlo’s art as a „ribbon around a bomb”. Kahlo had a volatile marriage with the famous Mexican artist Diego Rivera. She suffered lifelong health problems, many of which derived from a traffic accident during her teenage years. These issues are represented in her works, many of which are self-portraits of one sort or another. Kahlo suggested, „I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.”

She also stated, „I was born a bitch. I was born a painter. After the accident, Kahlo neglected the study of medicine to begin a painting career. She painted to occupy her time during her temporary immobilization. Her self-portraits became a dominant part of her life when she was immobile for three months after her accident. Kahlo once said, „I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.” Her mother had a special easel made for her so she could paint in bed, and her father lent her his box of oil paints and some brushes. Drawn from personal experiences, including her marriage, her miscarriages, and her numerous operations, Kahlo’s works are often characterized by their suggestions of pain.

Of her 143 paintings, 55 are self-portraits which often incorporate symbolic portrayals of physical and psychological wounds. She insisted, „I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.” Kahlo was influenced by indigenous Mexican culture, which is apparent in her use of bright colors and dramatic symbolism. She frequently included the symbolic monkey. In Mexican mythology, monkeys are symbols of lust, but Kahlo portrayed them as tender and protective symbols. Christian and Jewish themes are often depicted in her work.

She combined elements of the classic religious Mexican tradition with surrealist renderings. Kahlo created a few drawings of „portraits,” but unlike her paintings, they were more abstract. She did one of her husband, Diego Rivera,[18] and of herself.[19] At the invitation of André Breton, she went to France during 1939 and was featured at an exhibition of her paintings in Paris. The Louvre bought one of her paintings, The Frame, which was displayed at the exhibit. This was the first work by a twentieth century Mexican artist that was purchased by the renowned museum.

Informatii suplimentare in limba romana http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida_Kahlo

How we got gay – (Canada, 2014)

HOW WE GOT GAY tells the powerful story of the struggle for gay rights, from the 40’s and 50’s to the present day. It takes us inside the secret lives gay people were forced to live, at a time when homosexuality was illegal in every province in Canada and every state in America and police harassment was a fact of life. Using a rich mix of never before seen archival images and footage and candid interviews with activists and personalities including author Edmund White, and Village Voice columnist Michael Musto, the documentary explores what life was like for gay people at a time when homosexuality was seen as a mental illness, and to be openly gay was to live in utter exile from society.

Anatoly – (USA, 2014)

For the last decade of his life, the British Soviet spy Guy Burgess was in a relationship with a Russian man named Anatoly. They met in Moscow, where Burgess lived after fleeing the United Kingdom in 1951. Their relationship was well known and accepted by Soviet authorities at a time when male homosexuality was a criminal offense—punishable by up to five years in prison—in the Soviet Union. Very little is known about Anatoly: he was born in the village of Yasnaya Polyana, outside of Moscow. When he met Burgess in his late-twenties, Anatoly worked as an electrician in Moscow and was an amateur musician.

The film Anatoly looks at the USSR’s legacy of sexual difference and reflects upon the experiences of working-class homosexuals in the Soviet Union. Through the lens of one historical narrative—Anatoly’s—the project considers the plight of queer persons under Soviet socialism and mourns the failure of the Russian Revolution’s promise of universal liberation. Anatoly is the only gay working class person known to be granted sexual „freedom” in the Soviet Union; the state brutally repressed thousands of other people just like him throughout its history.

In the fall of 2013, Yevgeniy Fiks asked nine post-Soviet LGBT people living in New York to speculatively write the story of Anatoly’s life for this film. Drawing on their knowledge of Soviet history, personal experiences, and imagination, the contemporary LGBT post-Soviets participants reconstruct Anatoly’s narrative and in so doing, raise their own consciences and reclaim the Soviet gay and lesbian histories as their own.

Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess (1911-1963) was an openly gay British diplomat and a Soviet spy, a member of the Cambridge 5 spy ring, and a defector from the United Kingdom to the Soviet Union. His life, from Cambridge to the Foreign Office and then behind the Iron Curtain is richly documented in several biographies which read as veritable spy novels, and as such are absolutely incredible. For the last decade of his life, Burgess was in a relationship with a Russian man named Anatoly. We do not know Anatoly’s family name. They met in Moscow, where the infamous defector fled to in 1951. Their relationship was well known, and quite possibly arranged, by the authorities at a time when male homosexuality was a criminal offense—punishable by up to five years in prison—in the Soviet Union. All we really know about Burgess’ Russian lover today is his first name and that he worked as an electrician in Moscow and was an amateur musician.

Yevgeniy Fiks, a New York-based conceptual artist, is attempting to imagine and construct Anatoly’s life before, with and after Burgess. Fiks’ Anatoly is brought back to life through voices of the Russian-speaking gays and lesbians who currently reside in the U.S. Their personal experiences inform their imagination – it is not a historical, but rather a personal fantasy reconstruction, a mosaic of reflections on (and by) each of the participant’s individual identity and understanding of the Soviet history.