First Love

First Love 2004

6.80

Vittorio is looking for a woman who matches his ideal. Through a classified ad he meets Sonia, a sweet, pleasant, intelligent girl. However, she weighs 125 pounds -- which according to Vittorio is way too much. A goldsmith by trade, Vittorio is obsessed with the desire to shape Sonia's body and mind as does a fire with gold. Almost imperceptibly Sonia becomes a passive participant and the relationship grows into a reciprocal masochistic game. When the two lovers isolate themselves in a country house in the Veneto hills, they dangerously lose touch with reality and the rest of the world.

2004

Psycho Beach Party

Psycho Beach Party 2000

5.70

Chicklet is a sixteen-year old tomboy who's desperate to be part of the in-crowd of Malibu beach surfers. She's the typical American girl - except for one little problem: her personality is split into more slices than a pepperoni pizza.

2000

Steam: The Turkish Bath

Steam: The Turkish Bath 1997

6.60

Francesco and Marta run a husband-and-wife design company in Rome. When Francesco's aunt dies in Instanbul he travels there to sort out the hamam turkish steam bath that she left him. He finds a love and warmth in his relatives' Instanbul home that is missing from his life in Italy.

1997

Slipstream

Slipstream 2007

4.91

Aging screenwriter Felix Bonhoeffer has lived his life in two states of existence: in reality and his own interior world. While working on a murder mystery script, and unaware that his brain is on the verge of implosion, Felix is baffled when his characters start to appear in his life, and vice versa.

2007

Ellie Parker

Ellie Parker 2005

5.10

Ellie Parker, an aspiring actress from Australia, lives a hectic Hollywood lifestyle, perpetually trying to land the role that will elevate her career. Living with her lothario musician boyfriend, Justin, Ellie is far from happy, finding support primarily from her friend Sam. But when Ellie meets Chris after a minor traffic accident, she sees new potential for both romance and her life in general.

2005

The Living End

The Living End 1992

6.70

Two HIV-positive young men — a semi-employed film critic and a hot hustler — tear off on a cross-country crime spree.

1992

Kabei: Our Mother

Kabei: Our Mother 2008

7.20

Set in Tokyo in 1940, the peaceful life of the Nogami Family suddenly changes when the father, Shigeru, is arrested and accused of being a Communist. His wife Kayo works frantically from morning to night to maintain the household and bring up her two daughters with the support of Shigeru's sister Hisako and Shigeru's ex-student Yamazaki, but her husband does not return. WWII breaks out and casts dark shadows on the entire country, but Kayo still tries to keep her cheerful determination, and sustain the family with her love. This is an emotional drama of a mother and an eternal message for peace.

2008

Happiness Runs

Happiness Runs 2010

4.20

The neglected child of parents living on a commune, Victor is helpless to resist the atmosphere of sex and drugs that permeates his world, but he's smart enough to know that if he is going to survive, he has to get out.

2010

The Missing Person

The Missing Person 2009

5.60

Private detective John Rosow is hired to tail a man on a train from Chicago to Los Angeles. Rosow gradually uncovers the man's identity as a missing person; one of the thousands presumed dead after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Persuaded by a large reward, Rosow is charged with bringing the missing person back to his wife in New York City.

2009

Beefcake

Beefcake 1998

5.30

A look at the 1950s muscle men's magazines and the representative industry which were popular supposedly as health and fitness magazines, but were in reality primarily being purchased by the still-underground homosexual community. Chief among the purveyors of this literature was Bob Mizer, who maintained a magazine and developed sexually inexplicit men's films for over 40 years. Aided by his mother, the two maintained a stable of not so innocent studs.

1998

Cicada

Cicada 2021

5.70

Ben is a young bisexual man. He comes out to the world and develops an intense relationship with Sam, a man of color struggling with deep wounds of his own. As the summer progresses and their intimacy grows, Ben's past crawls to the surface.

2021

Office Killer

Office Killer 1997

5.20

When Dorine Douglas' job as proofreader for Constant Consumer magazine is turned into an at-home position during a downsizing, she doesn't know how to cope. But after accidentally killing one of her co-workers, she discovers that murder can quench the loneliness of her home life, as a macabre office place forms in her basement, populated by dead co-workers.

1997

30/30 Vision: Three Decades of Strand Releasing

30/30 Vision: Three Decades of Strand Releasing 2019

5.00

Over 30 filmmakers and friends of Strand Releasing have come together to honor the company’s indelible contribution to independent cinema over the past thirty years. The participating filmmakers have each created a short film for the project, all shot on iPhones.

2019

Aggie

Aggie 2020

1.00

An exploration of the nexus of art, race, and justice through the story of art collector and philanthropist Agnes Gund who sold Roy Lichtenstein’s painting “Masterpiece” in 2017 for $165 million to start the Art for Justice Fund to end mass incarceration.

2020

Boys Life 5

Boys Life 5 2006

5.60

Boys Life 5 is the fifth installment of the Boys Life series, which collects LGBT-related short films. Distributed by Strand Releasing. This gay anthology of short films about unrequited love should strike a universal chord with audiences of all persuasions. 4 Shorts: Dare (2005); Fishbelly White (1998); Late Summer (2001); Time Off (1990).

2006

Latin Boys Go to Hell

Latin Boys Go to Hell 1997

4.50

A cute, openly gay latin boy's hormones go into overdrive when his hunky cousin Angel arrives for an extended stay. The two explore the young and sometimes dangerous gay scene in the city's Latin neighborhood, with surprising outcomes.

1997

Boys Life 3

Boys Life 3 2000

5.10

Jason Gould satirizes coming out in Hollywood in Inside Out, starring Alexis Arquette and papa Elliot Gould. Lane Janger's Just One Time was a festival favorite recently expanded into a feature film that turns the tables on a groom-to-be and his fantasies of sex with two women. Bradley Rust Gray's Hitch follows two attractive young guys on a dizzying road trip that leads them toward sexual self-discovery. David Fournier's Majorettes in Space is a witty French spoof of post-modern sex, romance, relationships, the Pope and baton-twirling majorettes. And, Gregory Cooke's $30 is the bittersweet story of a closeted teen presented with a young prostitute on his 16th birthday.

2000

Boys Life

Boys Life 1994

4.80

Each of the three short films in this collection presents a young gay man at the threshold of adulthood. In "Pool Days," Justin is a 17-year old Bethesda lad, hired as the evening life guard at a fitness center. In the course of the summer, he realizes and embraces that he's gay. In "A Friend of Dorothy," Winston arrives from upstate for his freshman year at NYU. He has to figure out, with some help from Anne, a hometown friend, how to build a social life as a young gay man in the city. In "The Disco Years," Tom looks back on 1978, the year in high school that he came out of the closet after one joyful and several painful encounters

1994

Happy New Year Tijuana

Happy New Year Tijuana 2018

4.00

Adventure, romance, and the resplendent cultural flavor of Tijuana permeate the air in this spirited, high-energy and imaginative film. When Alejandro, a Chicano Studies professor from Los Angeles, finds himself stranded in the unpredictable border town on New Year’s Eve, a surprise encounter with a former student leads to a night he'll never forget.

2018

Built for Endurance

Built for Endurance 1993

2.00

A tall and torrid story BUILT FOR ENDURANCE is an experimental short film based on a true story about a violent gay hustler and his so-called girlfriend who attack a man who has been stalking them.

1993