HELLBENT

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In late-70’s NYC’s “slummy and fabulous” West Village, a serial murderer dismembered victims and “exploitive” Exorcist-director William Friedkin ripped a page from the headlines, inciting the community to action. As anarchy raged, an unexpected jouissance permeated the hot-blooded summer of ‘79. Addison Verrill, a 36-year-old Variety reporter, split time between his live-in lover, splashy premieres with the likes of Streisand, and exploring “eroticized fears” in pitch black container trucks. His shocking murder convinced crusading journalist Arthur Bell to dedicate himself to the case—a mission that inadvertently inspired Cruising. Helmed by a straight director and his straight superstar, Al Pacino, the film attempted to infiltrate the hedonistic, “leather and Levis” world of the notorious Mineshaft bar. Gay extras flocked while gay activists turned the set into a battlezone as two competing visions of representation clashed. The results would be felt for generations. Jeffrey Schwartz, the Emmy Award-winning filmmaker of Vito (I+N24, 2011) and I am Divine (I+N26, 2013), guides this graphic, gripping documentary. In it, Dan Savage joins historians, journalists and leathermen alike to trace Cruising’s makings and cultural mark all the way to the youth culture of today.

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A famed detective arrives at a remote mansion to find a murderer standing over his latest victim. As the detective presses him to confess his motive, the truth grows increasingly complicated, revealing that the two men's shared history may be central to the crime.

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Cheryl Dunye’s groundbreaking The Watermelon Woman blends fiction and documentary to explore the erasure of Black queer women from film history. Funny, incisive, and playfully self-reflexive, this landmark of New Queer Cinema follows a filmmaker determined to uncover the story behind a forgotten face on screen. Cheryl, played by Dunye herself, is a young Black lesbian working at a video store in Philadelphia while pursuing her filmmaking ambitions. Fascinated by a Black actress credited only as “The Watermelon Woman” in a 1930s Hollywood film, Cheryl sets out to discover her name and history. Her research leads her into the intertwined worlds of race, sexuality, representation, and the hidden lives of Black women in cinema. Meanwhile, her budding relationship with Diana, played by queer cinema icon Guinevere Turner, raises questions about desire, privilege, and interracial intimacy. Moving between archival-style footage, interviews, personal video diaries, and fictional storytelling, Dunye blurs the boundaries between fact and invention. With wit and critical insight, The Watermelon Woman challenges histories that exclude queer voices and imagines new ways to reclaim them. Both a personal journey and a radical act of cinematic self-definition, the film remains a defining work of Black lesbian cinema.

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Long before LGBTQ+ rights became part of the public conversation, Magnus Hirschfeld was fighting to change how society understood sexuality, gender, and desire. Rosa von Praunheim’s The Einstein of Sex brings the pioneering German sexologist’s remarkable life and work to the screen. Born in 1868 to a Jewish family, Hirschfeld became a physician and an outspoken advocate for sexual minorities. In 1897, he founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, the world’s first organization dedicated to homosexual rights, and campaigned to overturn Paragraph 175, the German law criminalizing homosexuality. His work extended far beyond activism. Hirschfeld pursued research into sexuality and gender, worked within the emerging psychoanalytic movement before breaking with Freud and Jung, and in 1919 established the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin. The institute became an internationally renowned centre for research, education, and care, including pioneering work with transgender people. Praunheim traces Hirschfeld’s life chronologically, blending historical reconstruction with a deliberately theatrical, educational style. After the Nazis seized power, the institute was destroyed and its library burned. Hirschfeld went into exile, dying in 1935 without seeing his vision realized. A portrait of a visionary whose legacy continues to shape queer history.

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At summer camp, Syd is secretly transforming into a werewolf and struggling to act normal around new friends. When they discover those friends are werewolf hunters, Syd decides that fitting in may require removing everything that makes them inhuman.

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Poignant and powerful, Don’t Come Out is a horror film that brings visibility to queer femme identity, and with a visceral intensity that is impossible to ignore. It spares no detail in the consequences of authenticity in a homophobic and misogynistic environment; particularly, how it permeates and haunts the mind. Medical student Liz lives a seemingly charmed life. As long as she is careful, consequence is only a word. After the sudden and brutal death of her secret girlfriend, Liz keeps up appearances, playing the role of dutiful daughter and passing as straight in her relationship with her doting boyfriend. When she makes a weekend getaway with her best friends, the reality dawns on her that escape is not really an option. As she finds herself enmeshed in sapphic desire again, the horror of breaking social norms ensues, and there is no going back from it. Informed by giallo cinema—blending suspense, eroticism, and stylish cinematography—as well as modernist and grotesque art elements, Don’t Come Out is sure to linger with you long after the credits roll.

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When a rookie forest ranger flees into the Quebec wilderness to escape a brutal hazing ritual, he finds himself hunted not only by his peers, but by a towering creature of folklore stalking him through the woods.

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On the track, everything is about winning. Off it, two women discover something far more complicated: desire, intimacy, and the thrill of finding someone who can match your stride. Robert Towne’s Personal Best is a sensual, athletic, and quietly radical portrait of queer desire and female ambition. Chris Cahill (Mariel Hemingway) is a talented young track-and-field athlete still searching for confidence when she meets Tory Skinner (Patrice Donnelly), an accomplished pentathlete preparing for the Olympic Trials. Their friendship quickly deepens into an intimate relationship, while Tory becomes both Chris’s mentor and fiercest competitor. Training together under demanding coach Terry Tingloff (Scott Glenn), the women push each other toward new heights. But as Chris’s abilities grow, so does the tension between them. The demands of elite competition—and the possibility of Olympic glory—force them to navigate the shifting boundaries between love, friendship, rivalry, and independence. Towne’s directorial debut remains striking for its frank portrayal of women athletes and queer intimacy. Shot with an immediacy that captures both the physical intensity of competition and the sensuality of the women’s relationship, Personal Best is a film about bodies in motion, ambition, desire, and the complicated ways we push one another to become our best selves.

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A stunning film set in the Canadian wilderness by award-winning director Gloria Mercer. Thrill-seeking in every sense, and especially bold in its critique of patriarchy out in the wild, A Safe Distance examines the idea of what survival can mean, putting a refreshingly feminist twist on a lovers-on-the-run tale. Yellowjackets fans, get ready, this one’s for you. There is no place for fragility in this film-viewing since gore and guile mark the characters’ journey as they stray far from their comfort zones, sometimes intentionally, and other times, by chance. When a marriage proposal goes awry, an abandoned woman named Alex finds herself in the company of two intriguing strangers whose rejection of societal norms draw her in and away from the mundane reality of her own life. One psychedelically-induced night of mayhem later, Alex has uprooted her entire system of values, and on levels that she never imagined possible. Fluid and kinetic, with the use of long-lens photography and zoom lenses, A Safe Distance is a rare cinematic sight to behold.

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Blending horror and humour, Lethal Ethel is a mockumentary that follows the story of a Naskapi vampire who goes to murderous lengths to protect her land and culture.