Sab Shimono: Acting “As If”

Throughout the 1950s, Tab Hunter reigned as Hollywood’s ultimate male heartthrob. But throughout his years of stardom, Tab had a secret. Tab Hunter was gay, and spent his Hollywood years in a precarious closet that repeatedly threatened to implode and destroy him. Tab Hunter himself shares first hand, for the first time, what it was like to be a studio manufactured movie star during the Golden Age of Hollywood and the consequences of being someone totally different from his studio manufactured image.

An investigation of how Hollywood's fabled stories have deeply influenced how Americans feel about transgender people, and how transgender people have been taught to feel about themselves.

On the evening of March 31, 1943, legendary lyricist Lorenz Hart confronts his shattered self-confidence in Sardi’s bar as his former collaborator, Richard Rodgers, celebrates the opening night of his ground-breaking hit musical, “Oklahoma!”

A young black lesbian filmmaker probes into the life of The Watermelon Woman, a 1930s black actress who played 'mammy' archetypes.

This intimate drama follows Rebecca, a woman who has kept her sexuality a secret from her friends but chooses to reveal it to a stranger. While Rebecca's revelations may not yield the results she expects, a perfect ending is still in reach.

A midwestern teacher questions his sexuality after a former student makes a comment about him at the Academy Awards.

Tala, a London-based Palestinian, is preparing for her elaborate Middle Eastern wedding when she meets Leyla, a young British Indian woman who is dating her best friend. Spirited Christian Tala and shy Muslim Leyla could not be more different from each other, but the attraction is immediate and goes deeper than friendship. But Tala is not ready to accept the implications of the choice her heart has made for her and escapes back to Jordan, while Leyla tries to move on with her new-found life, to the shock of her tradition-loving parents. As Tala's wedding day approaches, simmering tensions come to boiling point and the pressure mounts for Tala to be true to herself.

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

A teenage girl gets diagnosed with a reproductive condition that upends her plans to have sex and propels her into exploring unusual methods to have a sex life, challenging her relationships with everyone in her life, but most importantly, herself.

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.

1930s Hollywood is reevaluated through the eyes of scathing social critic and alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as he races to finish the screenplay of Citizen Kane.

Based on the autobiographical novel, the tempestuous 6-year relationship between Liberace and his (much younger) lover, Scott Thorson, is recounted.

A former child actress attends college in search of independence and ends up becoming romantically involved with a female professor. Their relationship thrives until an opportunity to return to acting forces her to make life-altering decisions.

Lucy and Jane have been best friends for most of their lives and think they know everything there is to know about each other. But when Jane announces she's moving to London, Lucy reveals a long-held secret. As Jane tries to help Lucy, their friendship is thrown into chaos.

Singer Freddie Mercury, guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and bass guitarist John Deacon take the music world by storm when they form the rock 'n' roll band Queen in 1970. Hit songs become instant classics. When Mercury's increasingly wild lifestyle starts to spiral out of control, Queen soon faces its greatest challenge yet – finding a way to keep the band together amid the success and excess.

The untimely death of silent screen star Rudolph Valentino prompts the many women in his past to reminisce about his troubled rise to superstardom.

Activist Bayard Rustin faces racism and homophobia as he helps change the course of Civil Rights history by orchestrating the 1963 March on Washington.

Camp Belvidere is a lesbian romance set in the 1950s about the coming of age of Camp Leader Rose and her forbidden encounter with Nurse Gin. It depicts the journey and evolution of a friendship into a romance between two women when their rapport would have been unlikely.

A drama centered on two women who engage in a dangerous relationship during South Africa's apartheid era.

Interview with Jason Holliday aka Aaron Payne. House-boy, would-be cabaret performer, and self-proclaimed hustler giving one man's gin-soaked, pill-popped view of what it was like to be black and gay in 1960s United States. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Milestone Films in 2013.