By Ramona Flume
For members of the LGBTQ+ community around the world, love can be an act of joy, defiance, and survival, sometimes all at once. This LGBTQ+ History Month, we’re honoring the people and movements that have pushed society toward equality, and recognizing that for many, the right to love openly and live safely is still on the line. In some places, the stakes are legal. In others, they’re personal, playing out at family dinner tables, in church pews, and on social media feeds.
Through it all, documentarians have kept their cameras rolling, on the front lines and behind closed doors — bearing witness and sharing the stories of the LGBTQ+ community. And Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program has supported the nonfiction filmmakers telling these stories of life and love since 2002. They have captured the marches and rallies, the historic political wins (and losses) but also the smaller turning points that rarely make headlines: two best friends’ last summer of youth on the Texas-Mexico border; a Russian artist’s defiant public performances; a queer ranchero’s lingering glances at a rodeo in Michoacán, Mexico; or gay septuagenarians finding love in their golden years.
We’ve rounded up 16 Institute-supported films that illustrate the poignant humanity, unabashed joy, and ongoing struggles of the LGBTQ+ community. Continue reading to discover these important stories of inclusivity and independence, along with some insights from DFP staff members who recommend them, plus options on how to watch.
Adam’s Apple
Director: Amy K. Jenkins
Producers: Brit Fryer, Amy K. Jenkins
Logline: Spanning almost two decades, Adam’s Apple is a personal documentary about a family in transition, intimately filmed from the perspectives of artist Amy Jenkins and her transgender son, Adam. Each equipped with a camera, the film creatively chronicles an ever-shifting dynamic as Adam charts his own path toward manhood.
Supported by Sundance Institute’s 2023 Documentary Fund and 2023 Producers Intensive and premiered at SXSW 2026.
“A remarkable result of two decades of creative collaboration between visual artist and filmmaker Amy K. Jenkins and her transgender teenage son, Adam’s Apple is an intimate longitudinal documentary following a family in transition. Shot from a dual perspective with a poetic storytelling approach, the film retraces the milestones of Adam’s gender transition journey against the backdrop of adolescence, as his parents grapple with embracing profound change. The result is a tender, honest portrait of familial love and transformation.” — Paola Mottura, Director, Documentary Film Fund
Currently screening at festivals.
Before You Know It
Director: PJ Raval
Producers: Sara Giustini, PJ Raval
Logline: From Stonewall to #LoveWins, three gay seniors navigate the adventures, challenges, and surprises of life and love in their golden years.
Supported by Sundance Institute’s 2012 Documentary Fund and 2014 Sundance Institute | Arcus Foundation Fund and premiered at SXSW 2013.
Check viewing options here.
Break the Game
Director: Jane M. Wagner
Producers: Matthew Makar, Jonathon Norcross, Jane M. Wagner
Logline: After coming out as a trans woman, world-record-holding gamer Narcissa Wright loses her massive fanbase. To win them back, she attempts to set a new record in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, live-streaming every minute of her quest. Break the Game is a moving exploration of gamer culture, the realities of online harassment, and the mental health implications of living a digital life.
Supported by the 2019 Sundance Institute Music and Sound Design Lab and premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Festival.
“Break the Game is a deeply moving and intimate portrait of trans world-record-holding gamer Narcissa Wright, through her journey of uncovering how another human can open up the world to you in a different way. Director Jane M. Wagner brings Narcissa’s journey to vivid life, balancing humor, mental health, and vulnerability. As audiences dive into the realities of gamer culture, the film ultimately offers a powerful reflection on healing, reconnection, and finding the courage to begin again.” — Andrea Alarcón, Producing & Artist Support Manager, Documentary Film Program
Check viewing options here.
Call Her Ganda
Director: PJ Raval
Producers: Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala, PJ Raval, Marty Syjuco, Lisa Valencia-Svensson
Logline: When a transgender Filipina woman is found dead in a motel room and the leading suspect is a U.S. Marine, grassroots activists demand accountability. The ensuing case lays bare political tensions between the United States and the Philippines.
Supported by the 2016 Sundance Institute | Arcus Foundation Fund, 2016 Bertha Foundation Fellowship, and 2018 Documentary Fund and premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival.
Check viewing options here.
The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson
Director: David France
Producers: David France, Kimberly Reed, L.A. Teodosio
Logline: Filmmakers reexamine the 1992 death of transgender legend Marsha P. Johnson, who was found floating in the Hudson River. Her death was originally ruled a suicide; many in the community believe she was murdered.
Supported by the 2017 Sundance Institute | Arcus Foundation Fund and premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival.
Check viewing options here.
Hummingbirds
Directors: Silvia Del Carmen Castaños, Estefanía “Beba” Contreras
Producers: Leslie Benavides, Miguel Drake-McLaughlin, Rivkah Beth Medow, Diane Ng, Ana Rodriguez-Falcó, Jillian Schlesinger
Logline: In Hummingbirds, Silvia and Beba tell their own coming-of-age story, transforming their hometown on the Texas-Mexico border into a wonderland of creative expression and activist hijinks. Filmed collaboratively over the final summer of their fleeting youth, their cinematic self-portrait celebrates the power of friendship and joy as tools of survival and resistance.
Supported by Sundance Institute’s 2020 Documentary Fund, 2021 WIF & Sundance Institute Financing Intensive, and 2023 Latine Collab Scholarship and premiered at the 2023 Berlinale.
Check viewing options here.
I Am Not Your Negro
Director: Raoul Peck
Producers: Rémi Grellety, Hébert Peck, Raoul Peck
Logline: In I Am Not Your Negro, Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished — a radical narration about race in America, using only the writer’s original words.
Supported by Sundance Institute’s 2016 Documentary Fund and premiered at TIFF 2016.
Check viewing options here.
I Am Samuel
Director: Peter Murimi
Producers: Toni Kamau, Peter Murimi
Logline: Filmed over five years, I Am Samuel is an intimate portrait of a Kenyan man balancing pressures of family loyalty, love, and safety and questioning the concept of conflicting identities.
Supported by Sundance Institute’s 2014 Documentary Fund and premiered at the 2020 Hot Docs Festival.
Check viewing options here.
Directors: Efraín Mojica, Rebecca Zweig
Producers: Efraín Mojica, Sarah Strunin, Rebecca Zweig
Logline: A journey to Michoacán’s hypermasculine rodeos descends into the subconscious of memory, queer desire, and longing, leading to a reckoning with the wounds and beauty of a home left behind.
Supported by Sundance Institute’s 2024 Documentary Fund and the 2025 Filmmakers Fund sponsored by Chase Sapphire Reserve and premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.
“Directors Efraín Mojica and Rebecca Zweig return to Mojica’s hometown of Penjamillo, Michoacán, Mexico, weaving together the textures, colors, and subtle queer glances that are as much a part of the rural Mexican rodeos, or ‘jaripeos,’ as the hypermasculine energy that drives them. Their backgrounds as a visual artist and poet imbue the film with a poetic intimacy and dreamlike aesthetic, combining abstract Super 8 imagery with a cinema vérité approach that is deeply sensitive to its lead characters. Through Mojica’s own journey of self-discovery, and their vulnerability as both filmmaker and character, we are drawn into an intimate, empathetic portrait of queer macho cowboy Noé and makeup artist Joseph as they navigate their queerness, desires, and identities amid the conservative rhythms of small-town life.” — Maria Caridad Clement, Senior Manager, Documentary Film Program
Currently screening at festivals.
Out Run
Directors: S. Leo Chiang, Johnny Symons
Producers: S. Leo Chiang, Johnny Symons
Logline: Mobilizing working-class transgender hairdressers and beauty queens, the dynamic leaders of the world’s only LGBTQ+ political party wage a historic quest to elect a trans woman to the Philippine Congress.
Supported by the 2013 Sundance Institute | Time Warner Fellowship and the 2014 Sundance Institute | Arcus Foundation Fund and premiered at the 2016 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.
Check viewing options here.
Pray Away
Director: Kristine Stolakis
Producers: Jessica Devaney, Anya Rous, Kristine Stolakis
Logline: When a small group of former Christian superstars who infamously ran the “pray the gay away” movement come out as LGBTQ+, a journey of personal redemption and an exposé of a movement begins.
Supported by Sundance Institute’s 2019 Creative Producing Documentary Lab and 2019 Producers Lab and Fellowship and premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Festival.
Check viewing options here.
Queendom
Director: Agniia Galdanova
Producers: Agniia Galdanova, Igor Myakotin
Logline: Jenna, a queer artist from a small town in Russia, stages radical performances in public that become a new form of art and activism — and put her life in danger.
Supported by Sundance Institute’s 2022 Documentary Fund, 2022 Producers Lab, and 2022 Producers Summit and premiered at SXSW 2023.
“Agniia Galdanova’s acclaimed documentary won a Peabody and an IDA award (among many other audience and jury prizes) for powerfully chronicling [a] Russian performance artist’s courageous blend of art, fashion, and activism amid the ongoing brutal crackdown on dissent.” — Dominic Davis, Manager, Documentary Film Fund
Check viewing options here.
Sabbath Queen
Director: Sandi DuBowski
Producer: Sandi DuBowski
Logline: Filmed over 20 years, Sabbath Queen follows Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie’s epic journey as the dynastic heir of 39 generations of Orthodox rabbis. As he rejects his destiny and becomes a drag-queen rebel, queer father, and founder of an experimental congregation, Amichai is creatively and radically reinventing religion and ritual for a rapidly changing 21st century.
Supported by Sundance Institute’s 2012 and 2015 Documentary Funds and premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Festival.
“Filmmaker Sandi DuBowski’s Sabbath Queen explores what it means to live at the intersection of queer and Jewish identities with thoughtful attention to all their nuance and complexity by following Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie’s journey toward self-discovery. This rich, kaleidoscopic film, shot over two decades, spans generations and continents, and its nonlinear structure evokes the similarly nonlinear process of defining and finding one’s purpose and sense of self.” — Sara Glassberg, Coordinator, Documentary Film Fund
Check here for upcoming screenings.
Second Nature: Gender and Sexuality in the Animal World
Director: Drew Denny
Producers: Drew Denny, Jennifer Steinman Sternin
Logline: Did you know clownfish change sex, penguins parent in same-sex pairs, and bonobos (our closest relatives) are matriarchal? Debunking myths that females are “inferior” and being queer is somehow “unnatural,” Second Nature follows LGBTQ+ scientists who prove that nature is far more diverse than we’ve been taught.
Supported by the 2022 Sundance Institute | Sandbox Fund Development Grant and premiered at NewFest 37 in 2025.
“Drew Denny’s Second Nature reminds us that humans are part of a natural world that is much, much queerer than your average nature doc would suggest. Narrated by Elliot Page, it follows trans trailblazer Dr. Joan Roughgarden through some of the over 1,500 species that engage in same-sex sexual behavior and parenting, change sex, and form matriarchies.” — Dominic Davis, Manager, Documentary Film Fund
Currently screening at festivals.
Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four
Director: Deborah S. Esquenazi
Producers: Deborah S. Esquenazi, Sam Tabet
Logline: After being wrongfully convicted of gang-raping two little girls during the satanic panic witch hunt era of the ’80s and ’90s, four Latina lesbians fight against mythology, homophobia, and prosecutorial fervor in their struggle for exoneration.
Supported by Sundance Institute’s 2013 Documentary Fund, 2014 Documentary Film Fellowship, and 2015 Documentary Film Creative Producing Lab and premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival.
Check viewing options here.
XY Chelsea
Director: Tim Travers Hawkins
Producers: Thomas Benski, Isabel Davis, Julia Nottingham, Lucas Ochoa
Logline: XY Chelsea tells the historic story of whistleblower Chelsea Manning, whose 35-year sentence in an all-male maximum security prison was commuted by President Obama in 2017. XY Chelsea is the journey of her fight for survival and dignity, and her transition from prisoner to a free woman.
Supported by Sundance Institute’s 2016 Documentary Fund and premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival.
Check viewing options here.
