Dark and Lovely, Soft and Free

Jan 2, 2000

0h 51m

★ 1.0

Overview

A road trip through gay spaces in small town South Africa, Graeme Reid's documentary introduces viewers to hairstylists, preachers, traditional healers, and beauty queens. This moving film provides an alternative vision of acceptance and celebration, in contrast to the wave of homophobia that is sweeping across sub-Saharan Africa.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

Franmi Productions

Gay and Lesbian Archives of South Africa

Vidiola

Dark and Lovely, Soft and Free Trailers

Cast

Himself

Zakhi Radebe

What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)

4.9

Lady Valor: The Kristin Beck Story

Mar 7, 2014

A former U.S. Navy Seal seeks life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness living life as a transgender woman.

4.3

Mariela Castro's March: Cuba's LGBT Revolution

Nov 28, 2016

A rare look inside Cuba’s LGBT community, this compelling film follows the efforts of Mariela Castro, daughter of President Raúl Castro, as she champions LGBT social reforms and acceptance of diversity.

5.6

Workhorse Queen

May 8, 2021

After an unlikely casting onto a reality television show, 47-year old suburban telemarketer Ed Popil leaves his job to pursue a full-time entertainment industry career as his drag queen alter ego, 1960’s era housewife Mrs. Kasha Davis.

5.3

Warriors of the Discotheque

Aug 17, 2015

The place is the notorious Starck Club (so called because it was the first major project designed by Philippe Starck in the US.) The Starck Club opened in Dallas in 1984 and not long after hosted the 1984 national Republican Convention. Ironically, it was actually legal to buy MDMA aka ecstasy there, people would put it on their credit cards. The DEA stepped in and made it a category 1 drug on July 1, 1985... In a time when ecstasy was legal & guyliner was cool.

5.9

The Colour of His Hair

Jun 20, 2017

Based on an unrealized film script written in 1964 for The Homosexual Law Reform Society, a British organisation that campaigned for the decriminalization of homosexual relations between men, "The Colour Of His Hair" merges drama and documentary into a meditation on queer life before and after the partial legalization of homosexuality in 1967.

3.8

Private Diary

Jun 26, 2003

Private Diary documents photographer Pedro Usabiaga working with a variety of amateur models. The audience sees how the relationships between the photographer and the subjects changes during their time together, as well as how the individual photographs begin to take shape. Pedro Usabiaga is a well-established Basque photographer whose chief concerns are figurative photography and whose passion in photographing the Spanish male. In this hour long conversation with the artist we are given entry into that process of selecting models (none of the models he uses for this book to be titled 'Private Diary' are professional, but instead are randomly chosen as Usabiaga observes athletes in action) and then allowed to follow Usabiaga and his crew as they photograph these men in natural settings and natural light.

4.8

Wigstock: The Movie

Jan 1, 1987

The original documentary on the Wigstock festival, back in the day when it was a much smaller affair in Thompkins Square Park. A full day of peace, love, and wigs…

0.0

I Am

Aug 4, 2014

This beautiful and poignant film was commissioned by TENI (Transgender Equality Network Ireland) and is a conversational piece which explores gender identity and transgender experiences in Ireland.

5.5

The Sound of Identity

Aug 22, 2020

In the spotlight of global media coverage, the first transgender woman ever to perform as Don Giovanni in a professional opera, makes her historic debut in one of the reddest states in the U.S.

0.0

Planet Killers : Les barons de la corne

Jun 4, 2025

No overview available.

6.0

The Man Who Fell from the Sky

Jan 4, 2021

The Man Who Fell From The Sky is a Channel 4 documentary. It tells the fascinating story of two men who stowed away on a flight from South Africa to the UK in 2012. But what was their story, and what happened to the two men? The documentary is billed as a ‘stranger than fiction’ story, that features two men who made the ‘most extreme journey’ ever taken by humans. South Africans Themba Cabeka and Carlito Vale made the trip clinging onto the undercarriage of the plane. Together, they made the 11-hour, 5,639-miles trip braving -60C temperatures. The incredible journey made news around the world.

5.9

Dressed in Blue

Sep 6, 1983

A documentary about the lives of six transgender women in post-Franco Spain.

2.3

A Boy Named Sue

Jun 17, 2000

A Boy Named Sue chronicles the transformation of a transsexual named Theo from a woman to a man over the course of six years. Following Theo's physiological and psychological changes during the process, as well as their effects on his lesbian lover and community of close friends, A Boy Named Sue tells a story about gender identity, relationships, and how even things that seem permanent can change.

6.3

The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin

Mar 11, 2017

The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin celebrates one of the world’s most beloved storytellers, following his evolution from a conservative son of the Old South into a gay rights pioneer whose novels inspired millions to reclaim their lives.

0.0

Dating Nick

Jun 12, 2019

Nicolas Deocampo--a prominent Filipino filmmaker, academic, historian and activist--goes down memory lane in this intimate vignette and paints through his piercing poetry and gripping visual images—the wins of the LGBTQIA movement as he retells his own struggle in finding love and belonging.

0.0

The Courage to Cast Lots: The Story of Anna Leah Sarabia

Jun 27, 2019

Aside from being the brains of Filipino lesbian anthology Tibok, The Heartbeat of the Filipino Lesbian back in 1998, Anna Leah remains to be a strong force in the women’s and LGBT movement up to this day. She held several leaderships positions and has founded various organizations and platforms that empower women, the youth and LGBT. She is also a super mom to her kids and a cool grandma to her grandchildren.

0.0

Aida

Jun 23, 2019

Aida Santos Maranan is a poet, writer, teacher, feminist and NGO worker. In 1983, she co-founded the Katipunan ng Kababaihan para sa Kalayaan (KALAYAAN), one of the first feminist groups in the country, and other women's groups and initiatives. Aida was Imprisoned during the martial law years and remains active in human rights activism.

6.2

The Spark: The Origins of Pride

Jul 24, 2019

A story of the LGBT struggle from the 1960s to the present, after the Stonewall riot sparked the militant action in New York that was to spread around the world. From San Francisco to Paris via Amsterdam, between the first Gay Pride, the election of Harvey Milk, the French "decriminalization", the AIDS epidemic and the first homosexual marriages, these few decades of struggle are embodied through numerous testimonies of actors and actresses of this revolution rainbow.

0.0

Queer My Friends

Aug 9, 2023

Queer My Friends portrays a very important chapter of Kang-won’s life: his coming out as gay and the changes he goes through from the eyes of his best friend Ah-hyun. This 30s coming-of-age buddy film draws how these two from such different backgrounds grow up together by questioning, exploring, and, of course, fighting each other. While Kang-Won struggles to embrace his sexuality, nationality, and identity, Ah-hyun asks herself what it means to find oneself and accept others for who they really are.

Dark and Lovely, Soft and Free

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

Dark and Lovely, Soft and Free Trailers