In a world that can be hateful and unwelcoming, these shorts remind us that we can survive, despite it all, in love. Patrick Batt has spent decades curating a living museum, packed with artifacts from shuttered gay bars, vintage leather magazines, activist pins, and rare 8mm films, saving not just a store but a vital piece of LGBTQIA+ counter culture in AUTOEROTICA: WE BUY GAY STUFF (dir. Jeremy Stilb; U.S.). Trace Pope’s short SILENCE = DEATH (dir. Trace Pope; U.S.) follows the true story of ACT UP on May 21, 1990 as they stormed the DC campus of the National Institutes of Health to protest the lack of available drugs to treat AIDS. This film is a statement on AIDS, COVID, and the harsh reality of U.S. public healthcare. KANSAS, 1989 (dir. Clayton Dean Smith; U.S.) is the story of a Midwestern teen in the ’80s on the verge of coming out, and the night of danger that changes the course of his life. An exploration of the erotic archive Canadian photographer and entrepreneur John Phillips, THE JOB (dir. Frédéric Moffet; Canada) chronicles the impact of the AIDS pandemic on the photographer’s life at the dawn of the digital revolution. AUGMENTED (dir. Raymond Rea; U.S.) is an experimental nonfiction short, shot completely on 16mm, that analyzes the commonalities between medical augmentation and transgender alignment. Ira and her best friend get ready to look amazing and come face to face with their respective romantic woes in I WOULD NEVER FUCK YOU (dir. Mikaela Lungulov-Klotz, Alanna Murray; U.S.). ON EXPLOITATION AND IDENTITY (dir. Barry Boggs; U.S.) looks at representation of trans folks on television through American talk shows.
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