"Renwick recounts a sad time in her life, when a friend was dying and she suddenly became aware of the presence of crows... [Renwick] craft[s] a lyrical and moving essay that works its magic through poetic accretion rather than narrative logic."
— Holly Willis, L.A. Weekly
Taiwanese artist Shu Lea Cheang (b. 1954) tackles conceptions of racial assimilation in American culture, examining the political underbelly of everyday situations that affect the relationship between individuals and society.
A photographer comes to my home to take pictures and gets a lensful. His mouth and his shutter snap away as I aim my finest attributes at his cold and hard equipment.
A cinematic firestorm of found footage and pilfered Hollywood images, Mike Hoolboom’s hallucinatory Tom – described by the filmmaker as, "Cinema as déjà vu, or déjà voodoo" – pays mesmerizing experimental tribute to the life and work of friend and fellow avant-gardist Tom Chomont, and was selected by a national panel of film critics as one of Canada’s Top Ten of 2002.
Rubnitz’s short cooking clip showcases a chicken casserole recipe from the kitchen of Elaine Clearfield. All you need is chicken, rice, a packet of Lipton onion soup mix, a can of cream of mushroom condensed soup, and water!
This title is only available on Tom Rubnitz Videoworks: Sexy, Wiggy, Desserty.
Equal Rights for Unborn Drag Queens is a satirical short video in which Brenda and Glennda critique anti-abortion politics, homophobia, and religious fanaticism in the media. Interspersed between clips of right-wing news broadcasts is footage of Brenda having her nipple pierced, in an homage to Sandy Daley's Robert Having His Nipple Pierced (1971).
An episode of The Brenda and Glennda Show hosted by Brenda Sexual and Glennda Orgasm.
Part of a campaign initiated in 1989, this video is a component of Gran Fury’s plan to raise consciousness and advance medical and federal reform on AIDS policy. These ads ran on TV as a counterpart to controversial bus posters, which generated some intensely negative reactions. Using Benneton’s "United Colors" ad campaign to a decidedly different end, simple but powerful images and modern text deliver an enlighteningly direct message.
Audacious romanticism displays gardens fueled by the human heart where feelings blossom amid leaf and brick.
A rockumentary about East Village club Pyramid star John Sex. The blonde, coifed performer exposes his penchant for padding his package with socks and explains that his last name is the result of his ancestors’ “Americanization” of his native name Sexton. Featuring Miss Maggie, Katy K, Tom Rubnitz, Kenny Scharf, and Kestutis Nakas.
This title is also available on Tom Rubnitz Videoworks: Sexy, Wiggy, Desserty.
The disparate chronicles of a high school wrestling team, a flooded town of aliens, and the love affair between two young men. Performers responded to individual drawings and prompts to collectively generate improvisational dialog during the Pilot Conference: Experimental Media for Feminist Trespass, in Chicago, 2004.
With Becca Taylor
Setting her pixelvision camera on herself and her room, Benning searches for a sense of identity and respect as a woman and a lesbian. Acting alternately as confessor and accuser, the camera captures Benning’s anger and frustration at feeling trapped by social prejudices.
This title is also available on Sadie Benning Videoworks: Volume 1.
Based on the filmmaker's autobiography, You Are Here examines the search for home within our era of transnational displacement. As the son of Italian immigrants, the filmmaker examines notions of home and belonging within the context of his ethnic origins, but also extends this in relation to his identity as a gay man. The film chronicles his trajectory from his familial home in Italy, to his native Canada and beyond, and weaves a compelling portrait shaped by memory and the realities of the present.
In this episode of The Brenda and Glennda Show, Brenda and Glennda create a satire of 1990's infomercials. The video includes interviews and performances by Vaginal Davis, Bruce LaBruce, and Chris Teen.
An episode of The Brenda and Glennda Show, hosted by Brenda Sexual and Glennda Orgasm.
Set in a post-industrial ‘Neverland’ of worn down row houses, looming factories, and desolate seashores, a rabble of deprived gender and age ambiguous youths explore their own vulnerabilities and put pressure on what it means to grow up. Misadventures that include impromptu races, nighttime spooning, cheating at card games, attempts at hypnotism, pocket knife haircuts, and sexual fantasies all function as means for the characters to attempt knowing one another.
This video is a moving personal documentary about Danny, a friend of Kybartas who died of an AIDS-related illness in 1986. This powerful work explores the reason for Danny’s return home and his attempts to reconcile his relationship with his family members who had difficulty facing his homosexuality and his imminent death. Retracing Danny’s memory of his once-high lifestyle in the clubs and gyms of Miami, Danny avoids sentimentalizing its subject as it juxtaposes images, text, and voice-over to build a sense of the psychological struggle brought on by Danny’s impending, premature death.
A short, hilarious cooking mantra, featuring Sister Dimension, The "Lady" Bunny, RuPaul, David Dalrymple, Lahoma Van Zandt and Maria Ayala. "Where's the pickle? That's the surprise!"
This title is only available on Tom Rubnitz Videoworks: Sexy, Wiggy, Desserty.
Dirty Laundry speculates upon the buried narratives of gender and sexuality in Chinese-Canadian history of the 19th Century, when Chinese communities were almost exclusively male. A story about a chance late-night encounter between a steward and a passenger on a train interweaves with documentary interviews with historians and writers and historical documents brought to life. The video poses nagging questions about the personal and political stakes in the writing of history and in our interpretations of the past.
Based on a Swedish folk tale, The Sausage tells the humorous story of two sisters, three wishes, and a calamitous obsession with a sausage. The Sausage is the first completed episode of Fairy Fantastic!, a fairy and folk tale series presenting gender fluid adaptations of classic tales.
Zach Blas is an artist, writer, and filmmaker whose practice spans technical investigation, research, conceptualism, performance, and science fiction. Currently a Lecturer in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, Blas has exhibited internationally, including at the Walker Art Center, Gwangju Biennale, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Whitechapel Gallery.
In New Report, Wynne Greenwood and K8 Hardy are reporters at WKRH - the feminist news station that is "pregnant with information." As Henry Irigaray (Hardy) and Henry Stein-Acker-Hill (Greenwood), these two lesbian feminist artists stage reports on and with their friends, their social herstories, their nerves, and their bodies. It is urgently broadcast live to the newsroom and out to their studio audience.
A fast-talking and fabulous teen recounts his experiences as an out and loud Toronto queer. With catty wit, he recalls his confrontations with straight students at school and his gay prom at a Toronto gay youth community center, told with a flair for drama and punctuated with enactments of his Wonder Woman fantasies. Fung keeps the format simple, giving voice to his subject.
The two-part video Gender Cruise on the Circle Line involves Brenda and Glennda leading a group of drag queens, drag kings, and other gender nonconforming people on a three-hour ride on the Circle Line boat around Manhattan.
This sumptuous Valentine sent by Miss Philly unfolds with the lavish lushness of love for HIM whom she adores.
Five prayers are sent skyward, and five curses get directed inward by those living in the purgatory of "modern life"... Attend this moody Mass in the church of "thoughts and feelings"... It will uplift you.
This title comprises Wrestling with Angels (2015), Hiding Places (2016), Unfinished Paradise (2018), Late Night Blues (2016) and Nightscape (2017) which were compiled into this form by Mike Kuchar in 2022.
Brokenhearted, a young lesbian considers doubling her dating possibilities.
