@farah_popcornOperation Hyacinth (2021) is the one I'd start with if you want the surveillance angle: a Polish cop works a murder case and ends up learning how Warsaw's gay community was being watched and hounded. From there the whole set opens up. Essential Queer Cinema: Love, Survival & Resistance Under Oppression gathers six films from six different countries, and the throughline is desire that had to stay hidden, people figuring out who they are, staying alive, and pushing back, in all kinds of places and time periods. Great Freedom (2021), out of Germany and Austria, is a gay man locked up again and again in post-war Germany, still chasing freedom, dignity, and love. Bent (1997) is the British entry, a gay man trying to last through Nazi persecution in a concentration camp. Before Night Falls (2000) comes from Cuba and follows the writer Reinaldo Arenas, whose sexuality and writing put him in the crosshairs under Castro's regime. My Tender Matador (2020) is Chilean, an aging travesti tangled up with a young revolutionary while Pinochet's dictatorship bears down. Dance of the 41 (2020) goes to 1901 Mexico, where a scandalous gathering of men exposes how forbidden desire and political secrecy can wreck you. Six films, six countries, and every one of them a story about wanting something you're not supposed to want

@farah_popcornOperation Hyacinth (2021) is the one I'd start with if you want the surveillance angle: a Polish cop works a murder case and ends up learning how Warsaw's gay community was being watched and hounded. From there the whole set opens up. Essential Queer Cinema: Love, Survival & Resistance Under Oppression gathers six films from six different countries, and the throughline is desire that had to stay hidden, people figuring out who they are, staying alive, and pushing back, in all kinds of places and time periods. Great Freedom (2021), out of Germany and Austria, is a gay man locked up again and again in post-war Germany, still chasing freedom, dignity, and love. Bent (1997) is the British entry, a gay man trying to last through Nazi persecution in a concentration camp. Before Night Falls (2000) comes from Cuba and follows the writer Reinaldo Arenas, whose sexuality and writing put him in the crosshairs under Castro's regime. My Tender Matador (2020) is Chilean, an aging travesti tangled up with a young revolutionary while Pinochet's dictatorship bears down. Dance of the 41 (2020) goes to 1901 Mexico, where a scandalous gathering of men exposes how forbidden desire and political secrecy can wreck you. Six films, six countries, and every one of them a story about wanting something you're not supposed to want