According to Audre Lorde’s own description of herself she was: ‘a lesbian, a feminist, black, a poet, mother and activist’. In the 1980s Dagmar Schultz, who at the time was lecturing at the John F. Kennedy Institute at Berlin’s Freie Universität, invited Lorde to Berlin as a visiting professor. This move was to have an enduring influence, for Lorde soon became co-founder and mentor of the AfroGerman movement. In her documentary portrait, Dagmar Schultz distills hitherto unpublished and often very personal material of Lorde that portrays her among her Berlin women friends, fellowtravellers and students, many of whom she encouraged to begin writing.

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Look at Me Again is a road movie that whisks us away to the wild, semi-arid expanse of north-eastern Brazil. Our tough, cool travelling companion is Silvyo Luccio (‘… I was born a woman, became a lesbian and am now a man’), a thinker in the throes of transition and transformation who finds himself on a journey back into his religious-fundamentalist, deeply prejudiced, traditionalist past. At the heart of old wounds, humiliation and trauma lies an anxiously awaited encounter with a daughter and the hope of familial reconciliation. Look at Me Again portrays a vibrant human being full of resilience, who has broken free of the sexual catechism’s stale trinity of hetero-homo-bisexuality in order to set off on a different path in search of new horizons. Before him lies a baking hot road through regions marked by grinding poverty, ardent religious faith, superstition and bloated machismo, as well as several encounters with some extraordinary people. (Description courtesy of the Berlinale: The Berlin International Film Festival.)

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In June 2003, the Episcopal Church in New Hampshire came under fire when it became the first to elect an openly gay man, Gene Robinson, as a bishop. Since that flash point, Robinson has been at the center of the contentious battle for LGBT people to receive full acceptance in the faith. Director Macky Alston (whose film, Family Name, won the Freedom of Expression Award at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival) follows Robinson into the breach in the struggle for equality. While resolute in his calling, Robinson grows increasingly critical of the central role that religious institutions have played in fostering homophobia and hatred. He is pointedly not invited to a once-a-decade convocation of bishops and courts controversy by attending. His presence the next year for the Episcopal General Convention underscores the impact of its impending decisions about the church’s stance on the consecration of future gay bishops and the performance of same-sex marriage ceremonies. While Robinson never intended to be the poster boy for gay bishops, Love Free or Die demonstrates that he has become a beacon of hope for millions. His history-making church provides a model for other communities of faith to treat all people with dignity and respect, regardless of their sexuality. (Description courtesy of the Sundance Film Festival.) Winner, U.S. Documentary Special Jury Prize for An Agent of Change, Sundance Film Festival.

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