Sean O. Strub

At the height of the AIDS crisis, many gay men sold their life insurance policies to investors for quick cash. This documentary charts the rise and fall of the hundred-million-dollar “gay-death-profiteering” industry that grew out of their desperation, and spotlights one of its earliest investors: the filmmaker’s father.

When a liberal, openly gay/HIV+ man tells Dutch journalist Max Westerman he is running for mayor in a conservative Trump-supporting town in Pennsylvania, Westerman wants to know if his friend is crazy or if there is something about small-town America he doesn't understand. The result is a funny and poignant film showing how democracy can work at the local level in the age of Trump.

Rock Hudson was a virile screen idol who was the epitome of clean-cut masculinity. He was one of the first Hollywood celebrities to die of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, providing the killer virus with a famous face amidst the American AIDS paranoia of 1985. 2010 is not only the 25th anniversary of his death but would also have been his 85 birthday. The film investigates the many film roles Rock Hudson played, against the more intimate and private world of Roy Fitzgerald.

In the aftermath of Stonewall, a newly politicized Vito Russo found his voice as a gay activist and critic of LGBTQ+ representation in the media. He went on to write "The Celluloid Closet", the first book to critique Hollywood's portrayals of gays on screen. During the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, Vito became a passionate advocate for justice via the newly formed ACT UP, before his death in 1990.

The Emmy Award-nominated 30 Years from Here examines the AIDS pandemic over the past 30 years. Activists and medical experts that share stories include Terrence McNally, Larry Kramer, Marjorie Hill, Frank Spinelli, Jerry Mitchell, and Larry Flick.

Sex Positive explores the life of Richard Berkowitz, a revolutionary gay S&M hustler turned AIDS activist in the 1980s, whose incomparable contribution to the invention of safe sex has never been aptly credited. Mr. Berkowitz emerged from the epicenter of the epidemic demanding a solution to the problem before the outside world would take heed. Now destitute and alone, Mr. Berkowitz tells his story to a world who never wanted to listen.

No clothes. No apologies. This film marks artist Spencer Tunick's third 'Naked' documentary which feature photo shoots that create art from the naked bodies of men and women. In this shoot, 85 HIV-positive men and women gather in a downtown Manhattan bar where they bare it all for Tunick's camera, creating an unsentimental look at life with AIDS in America today.