Revisit Our Live Chat on Gender Identity, Violence, and Two Spirits

On Monday, June 13 leaders from the LGBT community joined ITVS, KQED, and Independent Lens for a discussion about issues raised in the film Two Spirits.

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Tags: gay pride, gender, KQED, LGBT, pride month, San Francisco, sexual identity, sexuality, transgender

Top Five LGBT Films with Pride

By Johnny Symons

Johnny Symons has made two films with ITVS: Ask Not and Daddy & Papa. In celebration of LGBT month this June, the Bay Area filmmaker offered BTB his top five, favorite LGBT films.

I make non-fiction films about the LGBT experience to help right a wrong:  there aren’t nearly enough authentic, complex images of gay people out there.  The result is that too many people – gay and straight – perpetuate narrow, homophobic stereotypes, and continue to live in fear.  My work is inspired by other gay documentaries, including the ones below.  I plan to keep making films like these until there’s no more need for them.
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Tags: gay pride, Independent Lens, independent producer, ITVS, Johnny Symons, LGBT, pride month, public media

Celebrate Gay Pride Month with ITVS

They’re here, they’re queer, they’re ITVS films that document and celebrate the LGBT community. Get used to it!

At the core of ITVS’s mission is to amplify the voices of the underrepresented in traditional media. In June, we get to celebrate the films airing this month across the nation, as well as those in our catalog that tell the rarely heard stories from the gay, lesbian, and transgendered communities.

This month, a remarkable film – City of Borders – airs on various PBS stations (check listings here). The film documents an astounding array of regulars at Jerusalem’s only gay bar. Palestinians (some who must sneak over Israel’s “security fence” to get there) mingle with Israelis, Muslims with Jews, men with women, gay people with straight people. It’s a stunning microcosm of peace and shared humanity amidst a landscape rent with conflict.

But also take a moment to browse through our film catalog’s sortable search engine for all of our films on LGBT topics.

Among them, notably, given recent news, is Ask Not, a film about the United States military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy that systematically bars gays and lesbians from serving openly in the armed forces. Now that repeal of DADT has been passed in both houses of Congress, there’s hope that this film is about to become an archival document of a sad time gone by.

Tags: gay pride, Israel, jerusalem, palestinians