Quentin Crisp

Former Warhol Superstar and creator of the seminal sexual politics performance spectacular Bitch!Dyke!Faghag!Whore!, Penny Arcade, washed up on the shores of the Lower East Side of New York as a teenager in 1967. After decades in the Downtown art world, Penny’s personal relationships with dozens of outrageous characters, from the world famous to the fascinatingly obscure, led to the creation of the Lower East Side Biography Project, an oral history of New York’s Bohemian culture from the 1950s to the present. These half-hour biographies have broadcast weekly on Time Warner Manhattan Cable Television for 20 years. Beyond Queer is a feature documentary compiled from these television interviews.

Harris Glenn Milstead, aka Divine (1945-1988) was the ultimate outsider turned underground hero. Spitting in the face of the status quos of body image, gender identity, sexuality, and preconceived notions of beauty, Divine succeeded in becoming an internationally recognized icon, recording artist, and character actor of stage and screen. Glenn went from the often-mocked, schoolyard fat kid to underdog royalty, standing up for millions of gay men and women, drag queens and punk rockers, and countless other socially ostracized misfits and freaks. With a completely committed in-your-face style, he blurred the line between performer and personality, and revolutionized pop culture.

Created from a treasure trove of archive, Queerama traverses a century of gay experiences, encompassing persecution and prosecution, injustice, love and desire, identity, secrets, forbidden encounters, sexual liberation and pride. The soundtrack weaves the lyrics and music of John Grant, Goldfrapp and Hercules & Love Affair with the images and guides us intimately into the relationships, desires, fears and expressions of gay men and women in the 20th century – a century of incredible change.

Born Denis Charles Pratt, Quentin Crisp was a writer, an artist's model, an actor and a raconteur. He became a gay icon after the publication of his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant in 1968, and even more of a celebrity when the book was filmed in 1975 with John Hurt in the starring role. This documentary asks how such a public figure - and a queer icon - fits into ideas of family, and in particular into his own family. Through an exploration of photographs, home movies and interviews with relatives, UNCLE DENIS? reflects on how traditions of familial memory-making intersect with the more public image-fashioning of one of the twentieth century's most determinedly self-made men.

Rescued from the Closet is a 2001 documentary consisting of interviews originally recorded for the 1995 film The Celluloid Closet. It explores the history and impact of LGBT representation in cinema, providing insights into the portrayal and evolution of LGBT characters and themes within the film industry.

Quentin Crisp was a writer, raconteur, social rebel, and "professional being". He was nearly 91 when he died of heart failure in 1999, and his death powerfully affected those who loved him. In this portrait, Tim Fountain (Crisp's biographer, and author of the play RESIDENT ALIEN) interviews friends and family of Crisp, to learn something of the significance of his death, and the "enigma of his life".

March 1999. Tim Fountain and Bette Bourne meet Quentin Crisp in his famously filthy New York apartment for one of his very last interviews before his sudden death in England a few months later during Tim and Bette's production of Resident Alien, a play based on Quentin's life and writing at the Bush Theatre, London.

Two competing lawyers join forces to sue a prestigious law firm for AIDS discrimination. As their unlikely friendship develops, their courage overcomes the prejudice and corruption of their powerful adversaries.

Veteran drag queens Vida Boheme and Noxeema Jackson take novice Chi-Chi Rodriguez under their wing on a madcap road trip across the country to compete in the Drag Queen of America pageant in Los Angeles.

England, 1600. Queen Elizabeth I promises Orlando, a young nobleman obsessed with poetry, that she will grant him land and fortune if he agrees to satisfy a very particular request.

Naked in New York begins in the car of grown up Jake, he is talking to us about his girlfriend, Joanne, and to whom you can turn to for help while facing life. From there it flashes back to his memories of his parents, college, house across from a squirrel infested peanut factory, best friend, writing career and Joanne.

Exuberant, eye-opening movie that serves up a dazzling hundred-year history of the role of gay men and lesbians have had on the silver screen. Film contains fabulous footage from 120 films showing the changing face of cinema sexuality, from cruel stereotypes to covert love to the activist triumphs of the 1990s.

Kojak charms his way into high society to investigate art thefts that are tied to munitions smuggling and murder.

The tale centers on an eccentric bag lady who rescues the stray cats of Venice and puts them on a boat to set sail for the new world. It has not been re-released for the home video market. This lack of availability, which has been described as making it "more rare than the dinosaur" has made it a sought-after item in some circles.

A black comedy version of the classic tale.

Returning home from a trip to visit his mother, Nick discovers that a good friend of his, Sid, has apparently raped his girlfriend, Mary. More concerned with his own wounded pride than with Mary's lingering feelings of guilt, pain and betrayal, Nick vows revenge.

Several guests who are lesbian or gay go to a home for Christmas.

Tells the story of Nelson Sullivan who was the unofficial video documentary filmmaker of the late 1980s downtown New York nightlife and LGBTQ+ community, with extensive archival segments directed by Sullivan himself.

Jim and Johnny, two starving rock musicians, are on the run from the Mexican mafia

When Tori, an affluent urban teen, befriends Snake, a streetwise kid from Harlem, his concerned parents hire Phil to be his Nanny to watch out for him. Soon Snake's older and more dangerous brother emerges and Phil realizes the job is much more involved than she ever imagined. Quentin Crisp also stars as a strangely profound local deli-owner to advise Tori along the way.

The colleagues, collaborators, and former lovers of a recently deceased theater personality gather together for an impromptu memorial service in this drama featuring the final full-length feature performance of actor Quentin Crisp. Heartfelt pathos blends with over-the-top comedy when the driving force behind a controversial theater group dies. Frank David Niles was the heart and soul of the "In Your Face" theater company, and now his friends and colleagues are determined to give him a proper send off. In addition to marking Crisp's final full-length feature performance, Red Ribbins also marks the return to the big screen for former The Devil in Miss Jones star Georgina Spelvin.

At age 73, writer and melancholy master of the bon mot, Quentin Crisp (1908-1999), became an Englishman in New York. Nossiter's camera follows Crisp about the streets of Manhattan, where Crisp seems very much at home, wearing eye shadow, appearing on a makeshift stage, making and repeating wry observations, talking to John Hurt (who played Crisp in the autobiographical TV movie, "The Naked Civil Servant"), and dining with friends. Others who know Crisp comment on him, on his life as an openly gay man with an effeminate manner, and on his place in the history of gays' social struggle. The portrait that emerges is of one wit and of suffering.

Gay guru and fading icon Malcolm wants to escape from Homo Heights town, which is ruled by drag queen and leader of gay mafia Maria Callous.

Diva filmmaker June Lang's documentary of her and Mr. Quentin Crisp having lunch at her apartment.

Doctor Frankenstein creates a mate for his monster, a woman called Eva, who promptly rejects the male creature. In turn, the doctor becomes obsessed with Eva, and tries to make her a perfect Victorian woman. Meanwhile, the male creature embarks on a journey of self-discovery, alongside a dwarf named Rinaldo.

Oscar Wilde’s famous and eloquent defence of love – made while he was being cross-examined at the trial that led to his incarceration and death – is strikingly illustrated, word by word, with Mapplethorpe-like imagery.

In this witty monologue, Quentin Crisp advises and opines about personal style (with a few digressions).

This TV documentary shows some of the colourful residents of and people connected with the New York Chelsea Hotel. Some highlights include Andy Warhol and William Burroughs having dinner; Quentin Crisp pontificating in a blue rinse hairdo on his balcony and Nico forgetting what she is talking about halfway through a dour rendition of "Chelsea Girls". A number of lesser-known characters also appear, linked together by a tour guide walking around the building and some sub-Shining sequences of a child cycling round the landings on a rickety tricycle.

Story of the life of Quentin Crisp, an Englishman who was brave enough to live his life according to his own style even in the hostile days of WW2.

The classic Shakespeare play in a way you've never seen.

A girl takes her camera along to a rocky beach, but quickly becomes fascinated with a far stranger mechanical contraption that she finds there.

Five years before the TV adaptation of The Naked Civil Servant made him a household name, Quentin Crisp - dandy, raconteur, life model and former prostitute - welcomed celebrated filmmaker Denis Mitchell into his dusty London bedsit. Crisp recalls the violence and fascination his extraordinary appearance once provoked, offers tips on avoiding housework and subsisting on a diet of stout and meal replacement powder, and ruminates on life as a "minority within a minority - an effeminate homosexual".

The first half of Ann Wolff's BFI-funded short sees the eponymous captain (played by O'Connor) enacting the bizarre actions of the verse, chewing his beard, bouncing through a window and "frowning at a passing ceiling". In the second half, a curious interplay involving a carrot unfolds at a railway station.