FEATURE DOCUMENTARY and Q&A

Five years in the making, CURED illuminates a pivotal yet largely unknown chapter in the struggle for LGBTQ equality: the campaign that led the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to remove homosexuality from its manual of mental illnesses. Before this momentous 1973 decision, the medical establishment viewed every gay and lesbian person as diseased and in need of a cure. Business and government used the mental-illness classification to justify discrimination and bigotry. As long as lesbians and gay men were “sick,” progress toward equality was nearly impossible.

Incorporating a trove of newly unearthed archival material — much of it unseen for decades — CURED takes audiences inside this riveting narrative to chronicle the strategy and tactics that led to a crucial turning point in the movement for LGBTQ rights.

​Indeed, following the Stonewall rebellion of 1969, the battle that culminated in the APA’s decision marked the first major step on the path to first-class citizenship for LGBTQ Americans. CURED sheds new light on this victory — which was far from inevitable — while situating the APA story within the larger context of the modern movement for LGBTQ equality.

Join us in the theater for a special screening of CURED, followed by Q&A with the Director/Producers, Bennett Singer & Patrick Sammon.

Cured Website

OUR PRIDE
Documentary Series

Experience these newly-minted films which confront the long standing issues of LGBTQ discrimination within diverse religious communities.

This series focuses on the multi-faceted nature of queer reckoning in contemporary religious life — including five recently released, incredibly personal films that investigate this issue across faiths, cultures, and histories, and a retrospective on the 2013 documentary covering the impact of western religion in Africa.  The series centers individuals directly impacted by harmful ideologies as well as presenting thoughtful ways to move forward together.

Spanning Judaism, Catholicism, Islam, and Evangelical Christianity, this series paints a wide, inter-faith picture of how prolifically queer discrimination lives within religion. Each film investigates its respective faith practice through scripture, often pointing to false interpretations or assumptions made by humankind to promote prejudice within their communities when there ultimately is none in their original texts.

​From a young Jewish man learning to overcome years of conversion therapy, to Southern mom’s of queer children marching on the Texas capital, to the first gay Muslim Imam spreading love and acceptance within his faith, and many others, the OUR PRIDE Queer + Religion documentary series shows the persistence and strength of queer activists who work tirelessly to transform their fellow faith believers into creating more accepting communities for all.  

An official WeHo Pride event Co-Sponsored by the City of West Hollywood and presented with the international Charter for Compassion.

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1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture
Seeking to uncover the origins of the rabid homophobia of the conservative church, a gay seminary scholar and a straight activist make a shocking discovery: In 1946 an erroneous translation of the term homosexual in the Bible that has been weaponized against the LGBTQIA+ community ever since. Director Rocky Roggio uses her own complicated history as the queer daughter of a minister as a point of departure to bring us this fascinating personal investigation.

The Radical
An intimate portrait of Muhsin Hendricks, the world’s first openly gay imam. Despite death threats, he started a radically-inclusive mosque in South Africa for LGBTQ+ Muslims, which gave rise to a global movement. Today, he fights for the acceptance of queer Muslims in countries where one's very existence is outlawed.

The Therapy
Told largely through never-before-seen footage from actual "gay conversion therapy," THE THERAPY is an unprecedented exposé of this controversial practice in an Orthodox Jewish community in contemporary Israel. Lev is a 54-year-old divorced man hoping to remarry, and Ben is a 23 year-old seeking a "cure," but both discover that the way forward is a far more fraught than they had hoped.

Wonderfully Made
A feature-length documentary meets fine-art project that examines the anti-LGBTQ viewpoints of the Catholic Church and the lack of diversity and queer representation within religious spaces and art. Emmy winner and LGBTQ activist Yuval David and his husband, Mark McDermott, take on the arduous task of including queer voices and faces in religious artwork and analyzing the complicated relationship between the Catholic Church and the LGBTQ community.

Mama Bears 
Did you know there are more than 32,000 mothers in America, many from conservative, Christian backgrounds, who fully accept their LGBTQ+ children? They call themselves "mama bears'' because while their love is warm and fuzzy, they fight ferociously to make the world kinder and safer for all LGBTQ+ people. MAMA BEARS explores this growing movement through the lives of three diverse mothers and their LGBT+ offspring. Directed by Daresha Kyi (CHAVELA).

​Special Event with Tribute to Kenyan Activist Edwin Chiloba

God Loves Uganda - 10 Years Later

We're joined by members of African Queer Youth Initiative, LGBT Voice Tanazania and other African activists to explore what has changed in the 10 years since the ground-breaking documentary God Loves Uganda ​was produced.  We explore the roots of homophobia and transphobia in Africa, then and now, and witness the current dangerous spread of anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation, attitudes, discrimination, and violence.   The film, additional current videos from Africa and discussion is followed by a Tribute to Kenyan activist Edwin Chiloba and a presentation of the posthumous 2023 Troy Perry Award to Edwin Chiloba, presented with the international Charter for Compassion.

Tribute to Edwin Chiloba

Troy Perry Awards

God Loves Uganda

God Loves Uganda is a 2013 documentary exploring the role of the American evangelical movement in Uganda, the “Pearl of Africa,” where American missionaries have been credited with creating schools and hospitals, but also blamed for promoting dangerous religious bigotry. 

​For many American evangelicals, Uganda is fertile territory to spread their interpretation of the Bible. But their proselytizing may have more nefarious results than they realize, as the missionaries’ teachings about homosexuality becomes part of a culture of intolerance and hatred towards Uganda’s LGBT community.

Produced and directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams, the first Black director to win an Oscar — whose father was a religious leader and sister is pastor — the film records the tense atmosphere of fear created when a virulently anti-gay bill wins widespread support. Now signed into law, the Anti-Homosexuality Act mandates a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for engaging in homosexual activity as well as imprisonment for those who provide aid or counseling to members of the LGBT community.

Using vérité-style camerawork, interviews, and hidden camera footage, God Loves Uganda allows American religious leaders and their young missionaries that make up the “front lines in a battle for billions of souls” to explain their positions in their own words. This includes Lou Engle, creator of The Call, which brings tens of thousands of believers together in “solemn assemblies.” It also offers a rare view of the most powerful evangelical minister in Uganda, and of a Ugandan church where a preacher whips a congregation into mass hysteria with anti-gay rhetoric. It also features the story of Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, a minister excommunicated, ostracized, and literally spat on for being tolerant, who campaigns for peace and healing in Uganda, as well as an interview with gay activist David Kato shortly before he was murdered.