New Queer Visions: Seeing is Believing

A filmmaker talks about his work and love life with an unseen friend behind the camera. We also watch four of his short films.

Jared, the son of a Baptist pastor in a small American town, is outed to his parents at age 19. Jared is faced with an ultimatum: attend a gay conversion therapy program – or be permanently exiled and shunned by his family, friends, and faith.

A Brooklyn teenager juggles conflicting identities and risks friendship, heartbreak, and family in a desperate search for sexual expression.

Sean is taken to a motel and is given a prostitute for his 18th birthday by his father. He must sleep with her to "fix" his questionable homosexuality. "Pretty Boy" is a coming of age story of a young bullied teen, Sean, struggling with his sexuality and the hardships of high school. After his father finds some questionable magazines in his room, this devout Christian will go to any lengths to get his son to find the light and "perform" the way a man should. Sean is introduced to Katie, a prostitute that understands the stigmas of modern society and helps him see the true light that is within him.

At a birthday party in 1968 New York, a surprise guest and a drunken game leave seven gay friends reckoning with unspoken feelings and buried truths.

In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.

A disconnected teenage girl enters a relationship with a man twice her age. She sees him as the solution to all her problems, but his intentions are not what they seem.

A decade after the death of an American TV star, a young actor reminisces about the written correspondence he once shared with the former, as well as the impact those letters had on both their lives.

A woman watches time pass beside the suitcases of her ex-lover (who is supposed to come pick them up but never arrives) and a restless dog who doesn't understand that his master has abandoned him.

Harold is celebrating a birthday, and his friend Michael has drafted some other friends to help commemorate the event. As the evening progresses, an unexpected guest shows up, the alcohol flows, the knives come out, and dormant and unspoken emotions are unleashed.

Teenage gang member Cal, hides his sexuality from his fellow gang members despite their often violent dislike of anyone that isn't the same as them, be they unsuspecting shoppers, foreign students, gays, etc. When his world collides with Olivier, a student he rescues from a pointless beating, he encounters a lifestyle that presents as many new experiences as it does obstacles.

When a change of circumstances leaves Miriam unable to pay her college tuition, she makes a surprising decision: to start performing in adult films, using the pseudonym Belle Knox. Miriam lies to her family and her friends at school, keeping her double life a secret. But soon rumours spread and Miriam becomes the subject of vicious online attacks and unwanted attention. Miriam fights back: she talks to the media, saying her new line of work empowers her as a feminist. But her confident stand has unintended consequences. Miriam is shunned by her conservative family and her colleagues in the adult film world. One impulsive decision has quickly spiralled out of control - and Miriam's problems are just beginning.