LGBTQIA2S+ Films on Kanopy

Donna Deitch's swooning and sensual first narrative feature, DESERT HEARTS, was groundbreaking upon its release in 1985: a love story about two women, made entirely independently, on a shoestring budget, by a woman.

In this 1959-set film, adapted from a beloved novel by Jane Rule, straitlaced East Coast professor Vivian Bell arrives in Reno to file for divorce but winds up catching the eye of someone new, the free-spirited young Cay, touching off a slow seduction that unfolds against a breathtaking desert landscape.

A video store clerk and fledgling filmmaker, Cheryl becomes obsessed with the “most beautiful mammy,” a character she sees in a 1930s movie. Determined to find out who the actress she knows only as the “Watermelon Woman” was and make her the subject of a documentary, she starts researching and is bowled over to discover that not only was Fae Richards (Lisa Marie Bronson) a fellow Philadelphian but also a lesbian.

The project is not without drama as Cheryl’s singular focus causes friction between her and her friend Tamara (Valarie Walker) and as she begins to see parallels between Fae’s problematic relationship with a white director and her own budding romance with white Diana (fellow filmmaker Guinevere Turner).

Gregg Araki’s acclaimed Outlaw Couple romance has been totally revamped in THE LIVING END. This take-no-prisoners story of two HIV-positive lovers on the run in 90’s America is even more powerful and politically charged than ever.

Nominated for a Grand Jury Prize in Dramatic Narrative at the Sundance Film Festival.