The Beauty President

Mar 20, 2021

0h 10m

★ 6.0

Overview

In 1992, at the height of the AIDS pandemic, activist Terence Alan Smith made a historic bid for president of the United States as his drag queen persona Joan Jett Blakk. Today, Smith reflects back on his seminal civil rights campaign and its place in American history.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

Breakwater Studios

Hillman Grad Productions

The Beauty President Trailers

Cast

Self

Terence Alan Smith

One Saturday morning, filmmaker Madison Thomas has a revelation: she’s just like her mother. As she thinks about a friend going through tough times, she feels the sudden urge to clean. Through the scrubbing and wiping and rinsing, Madison's thoughts drift to her mother — and her obsessive need to tidy. Madison’s mother survived a traumatic childhood: her own mother never reconciled what she went through at residential school. Cleaning offers moments of control that she didn’t have as a child. She’s fought hard, against all odds, to become a strong woman. They say trauma is in the genes, that it’s passed from one generation to the next. But strength is inherited too. Through rituals as simple as spending time together and smudging, Madison and her mother are beginning to mend the cycle of pain in their family. Declutter is an intimate look into a private moment between mother and daughter and the strength that carries them both.

0.0

Cult People

Jan 1, 1989

In interviews, various actors and directors discuss their careers and their involvement in the making of what has come to be known as "cult" films. Included are such well-known genre figures as Russ Meyer, Curtis Harrington, Cameron Mitchell and James Karen.

4.2

Heavenly Bodies

Jun 28, 1963

A group of filmmakers shadow some glamour photographers in order to discover the skill involved in getting 'magic' to appear on the photos.

5.0

The Dreamers

Feb 5, 1985

The Dreamers (1985) is a posthumous short film assembled by Oja Kodar from unfinished footage directed by Orson Welles in 1982. Edited after Welles’s death, the film derives from fragmentary material intended for an uncompleted adaptation of stories by Isak Dinesen. The 1985 version represents an editorial assembly rather than a completed work authored by Welles, presenting selected footage in a reconstructed form for archival circulation. (Note: This is a posthumous editorial reconstruction. The original 1982 project exists separately as an unfinished Welles work and was never completed or released by him.)

6.1

Mutts

Nov 17, 2019

For the 750 dogs that live in a Moroccan shelter, the daily routine consists of eating, resting, a bit of fighting and eating again. Could they possibly expect more from life? A pointed, cinematic commentary on mass confinement.

0.0

Screen Snapshots (Series 1, No. 20)

Feb 22, 1921

Intimate views of the movie stars of the Silent Era, at work and play; featuring Sessue Hayakawa, Lillian Gish and others.

10.0

Routine

Mar 30, 2025

An experimental half-documentary half-fiction about a young person’s routine of getting to sleep and waking up.

7.0

Life of Crime 2

Dec 15, 1998

This follow-up to the 1989 documentary ONE YEAR IN A LIFE OF CRIME revisits three of the original subjects in New Jersey during a five-year period in the 1990s. We share in their triumphs and setbacks as they navigate lives of poverty, drug abuse, AIDS, and petty crime.

0.0

Red Girl Rising

Apr 30, 2025

Joyce Jonathan Crone—Mohawk matriarch, retired teacher, activist, humanitarian—reaches forward into her community of Huntsville, Ontario, opening hearts and bridging gaps for Indigenous education.

6.0

Granny's Sexual Life

Sep 1, 2021

A trip into grandma's intimate life shows the status of Slovenian women in the first half of the 20th century.

0.0

I Choose to Live

Sep 26, 2013

The documentary »I Choose to Live« presents a touching confession of a young girl who after losing her mother, tried to end her life. Later on she struggled with self-destructive behaviour and also an eating disorder. In this documentary the young girl is portrayed by the actress Nina Rakovec. The theme of mental health of youngsters is highlighted with the help of the professional counsellors.

0.0

Safe Space

Jun 10, 2024

This documentary discusses how LGBTIQA+ people experience the streets and nightlife of Istanbul in terms of a safe space through the unique, yet common experiences of queers from different backgrounds, and focuses especially on nightlife and the issue of safe space there, which is a very critical area for queers to exist as they are.

7.9

Avatar Spirits

Jun 22, 2010

Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, co-creators of the hit television series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, reflect on the creation of the masterful series.

7.7

The Silence

Jan 1, 2015

There are children. There are those who abuse them. And there are those who know, but never tell.

0.0

Hell

Oct 16, 2019

Chennu committed his first crime when he was 15 years old: being a street kid. And he entered hell: Pademba Road. The adult prison in Freetown. In hell, Mr. Sillah is in charge, and there is no hope. Chennu got out after four years. Now he wants to go back.

0.0

Baseball: The History Of America's Most Beloved Pastime

Jan 1, 2020

Baseball has always been America’s most beloved pastime as this documentary explores in historic detail. Learn about baseball’s history, highest profile moments and what makes this sport so attractive to American fans year after year.

6.6

Stop for Bud

Dec 17, 1963

Stop for Bud is Jørgen Leth's first film and the first in his long collaboration with Ole John. […] they wanted to "blow up cinematic conventions and invent cinematic language from scratch". The jazz pianist Bud Powell moves around Copenhagen -- through King's Garden, along the quay at Kalkbrænderihavnen, across a waste dump. […] Bud is alone, accompanied only by his music. […] Image and sound are two different things -- that's Leth's and John's principle. Dexter Gordon, the narrator, tells stories about Powell's famous left hand. In an obituary for Powell, dated 3 August 1966, Leth wrote: "He quite willingly, or better still, unresistingly, mechanically, let himself be directed. The film attempts to depict his strange duality about his surroundings. His touch on the keys was like he was burning his fingers -- that's what it looked like, and that's how it sounded. But outside his playing, and often right in the middle of it, too, he was simply gone, not there."

The Beauty President

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

The Beauty President Trailers