The Lester Film

Jordy's 65 Reasons to Live

A heartfelt and uplifting portrayal about one young remarkable drag queen from Leith who, despite suffering from cystic fibrosis, lives life to the max. At 24 years of age, Jordan McKinley knows he is on borrowed time. This Leith-born-and-bred drama teacher, DJ and top Edinburgh drag artist faces his medical condition head-on and lives his life at 100 miles an hour.

The Devil's Tuning

Toyo Miyatake: Infinite Shades of Gray

Called "an elegant documentary" by Sundance and "eloquent and deeply moving" by the LA Times, Toyo Miyatake: Infinite Shades of Gray is a penetrating portrait of this photographer's search for truth and beauty in a world of impermanence. Los Angeles' Little Tokyo's foremost studio photographer, Miyatake smuggled a lens and film holder into the U.S. WWII camp he was incarcerated in and captured life behind barbed wire with a makeshift camera made of scrap wood. Yet it was his little-known artistic pursuits before the war that honed his discerning eye.

Wrinkles the Clown

In Florida, parents can hire Wrinkles the Clown to scare their misbehaving children.

365 jours

Censor Must Die

When Shakespeare Must Die, a Thai film adaptation of Macbeth is banned by the Thai government as a threat to national security, the film's producer treks through the corridors of power to un-ban his Shakespearean horror movie--from the Cultural ministry to the Senate and the National Human Rights Commission, all the way to the Administrative Court where he is suing the government for abuse of power. Wherever he went, amidst political upheaval, his director followed with a camera. The resulting reality cinema is the living story of a struggle for justice and human dignity, for freedom of expression, which Thai filmmakers do not have. A dark cinematic record of democracy in action, in all its farcical, obscene and heartbreaking details.

Private Chronicles: Monologue

The collective life of the generation born as Jurij Gagarin became the first man in space. Vitaly Mansky has woven together a fictional biography – taken from over 5.000 hours of film material, and 20.000 still pictures made for home use. A moving document of the fictional, but nonetheless true life of the generation who grew up in this time of huge change and upheaval.

Hoso Dekinai Shi no Doga

A collection of haunted videos that are said to have been suppressed so that no one could see them, in order to bring death to those involved. Contains terrifying footage such as "The Room You Don't Want to Stay", in which a TV show finds itself in an unexpected situation due to a psychic experiment, and "The Creeper", in which a mysterious phenomenon attacks a house in a remote area.

The Beauty President

In 1992, at the height of the AIDS pandemic, activist Terence Alan Smith made a historic bid for president of the United States as his drag queen persona Joan Jett Blakk. Today, Smith reflects back on his seminal civil rights campaign and its place in American history.

seen

Through footage captured by a home security camera, Nhi (23) drifts through her days in depression, isolated in a room overflowing with clutter and memories of her late mother. From the tender images and soft voices preserved on her mother’s old handycam, she rediscovers traces of companionship, encouragement, and unconditional love that endure beyond loss. These fragments grow into a quiet but steady lifeline, reminding Nhi of the resilience her mother once nurtured in her. As she learns to listen to those echoes, she begins to rise from despair, reclaim agency over her life, and slowly practice caring for herself again.

Dark Side of the Moon

A French documentary or, one might say more accurately, a mockumentary, by director William Karel which originally aired on Arte in 2002 with the title Opération Lune. The basic premise for the film is the theory that the television footage from the Apollo 11 Moon landing was faked and actually recorded in a studio by the CIA with help from director Stanley Kubrick.

His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th

A retrospective documentary about the groundbreaking horror series, Friday the 13th, featuring interviews with cast and crew from the twelve films spanning 3 decades.

My Heart Is an Octopus or My Father on the Shore of the Black Sea

A middle-aged man returns to a fictional country in the Balkans to make a documentary about his father, a well-known artist. The son’s own artistic endeavours have never received attention to the level he feels they deserve. Consequently he has struggled to find a meaningful place in society and his personal life is chaos.

The Hat Man: Documented Cases of Pure Evil

Eyewitnesses across the globe describe encountering the same evil entity.

Arde Lima

Anthony Vergara, Renato Renzo, Gerson del Carpio, and Ernesto Pimentel are four gay men who defy a Lima society that is still very macho, conservative, and religious, wearing high heels, shiny dresses, and well-styled wigs.

Faces of Death II

This film continues along the same lines as F.O.D. 1 with short scenes of material related to death. Mortuaries, accidents, police work are filmed by television equipment and domestic video cameras.

Faces of Death III

Gory real-life footage of blood and guts on the German Autobahn, drug smugglers getting blown away, a parachutist landing in a crocodile pit, torture and murder in El Salvador, a PCP addict getting stoned, a videotaped rape/murder, a car thief getting ripped apart by two junkyard dogs, and much more.

Faces of Death IV

Contains more than 50 separate scenes of blood-chilling horror, none of which have ever been seen by the public, depicting a cremation, an electrocution, a terrorist destroyed by his own bomb, the massacre of a Columbian wedding party, the drawing and quartering of a Russian peasant and a man-eating tiger turning on its trainer.

Faces of Death V

A direct-to-video compilation of the highlights of the earlier films in the Faces of Death series.

Faces of Death VI

A direct-to-video compilation of the highlights of the earlier films in the Faces of Death series.