Sense8 (TV series)

Original title: Sense8 (USA, 2015-2018 (two seasons))

Designed: Lilly Wachowski, Lana Wachowski, J. Michael Straczynski

Director: Lilly Wachowski, Lana Wachowski

Cast: Jamie Clayton, Max Riemelt, Ari Brickman, Sara Sohn, Freema Agyeman, Aml Ameen

Genre: Science Fiction

Plot: Eight strangers around the world find themselves unexpectedly interconnected through a telepathic link. As they search for possible solutions to this enigma, a mysterious organization stalks them, intent on destroying them. Each episode deals with diversity on several fronts: sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, conventions and cultural clichés. One of the eight protagonists is Nomi, a transgender female activist in San Francisco.

Notes: The creators of Sense8 also developed the Matrix trilogy and TV series Babylon 5.

A Soap

Original title: A Soap (Denmark, 2006)

Director: Pernille Fischer Christensen

Cast: Trine Dyrholm, David Dencik, Frank Thiel, Elsebeth Steentoft

Genre: Comedy

Plot: The film tells the story of two neighbors. Charlotte owns a beauty clinic and is in the middle of a love crisis. Veronica, a transgender woman who has been waiting for ages for the authorization to perform gender affirmative surgery, works as a prostitute to support herself. First, Charlotte accidentally saves Veronica from an attempted suicide, then Veronica saves Charlotte from being attacked by her drunken ex-partner. A great friendship is born between them.

Notes: The film was presented at the Berlin Film Festival, and wonthe Silver Bear — Grand Jury Prize and Best First Feature Award.

Soapdish

Original title: Soapdish (USA, 1991)

Director: Michael Hoffman

Cast: Sally Field, Kevin Kline, Robert Downey Jr., Whoopi Goldberg

Genre: Comedy

Plot: On the set of a soap opera, the real lives of the performers intertwine, through various twists and turns, with the events of the series.

Notes: Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor (Kevin Kline).

Stonewall

Notes: There are two versions of the film with the same title, both are inspired by the same period, but have different plots. Nigel Finch directed the first in 1995, Emmerich the second, in 2015. Both are set in New York City in the days leading up to the “Stonewall Riots”, the series of uprisings symbolically considered the birth of the modern gay liberation movement around the world. The riots began after violent clashes between New York police and gay groups following a police raid on a gay bar in Greenwich Village on the night of June 27, 1969. For this reason, June 28 has been chosen by the LGBT movement as the date of “World LGBT Pride Day.” (Gay Pride). Sylvia Rivera, the transgender woman who started the revolt by throwing a bottle against a policeman, became the symbol of the Stonewall riots.

Stonewall (1995)

Original title: Stonewall (United Kingdom, 1995)

Director: Nigel Finch

Genre: Historical, drama

Plot: The film reconstructs the events preceding and leading to the Stonewall Riots of June 28, 1969 through the personal stories of three characters: La Miranda, a romantic cross-dresser, Matty Dean, a young homosexual who fled to New York, and Ethan, a journalist and 'bourgeois' activist. In the summer of 1968, Matty takes La Miranda's side during a confrontation with the police at Stonewall, a well-known gay club. A relationship between La Miranda and Matty Dean begins, leading Matty to join a group of LGBT activists.

Notes: The 1995 film features an important “factual inaccuracy”. The “sip in”, the protest drinking scene between protesters and journalists, actually took place in 1966. Whereas during the riots of 1969, even serving alcohol was forbidden. The film was never dubbed or subtitled in Italian. 

Stonewall (2015)

Original title: Stonewall (USA, 2015)

Director: Roland Emmerich

Cast: Jeremy Irvine and Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Genre: Historical, drama

Plot: This is the story of Danny, one of the protagonists of the revolt against the police at the Stonewall Inn. He was working at this New York bar, after being kicked out by his family for being homosexual.