SamHel follows several groups of bondage enthusiasts as they illustrate their hobby.
Social & External
The people behind it
Haskell Holland
Kitt Jones
Heady Harmony
Vega
Look around. Everything you see and touch can taste like vanilla.
An hour-long workout with a BDSM theme on a NYC rooftop, taught by a variety of instructors.
This highly controversial documentary, aired as part of the CBS Reports series, ostensibly covers the growing influence of the LGBT community in San Francisco circa 1979. Critics have rebuked the program for its characterization of the sexual practices of gay men, while organizations such as the Moral Majority referenced it in campaigns against gay rights ordinances.
Sex Positive explores the life of Richard Berkowitz, a revolutionary gay S&M hustler turned AIDS activist in the 1980s, whose incomparable contribution to the invention of safe sex has never been aptly credited. Mr. Berkowitz emerged from the epicenter of the epidemic demanding a solution to the problem before the outside world would take heed. Now destitute and alone, Mr. Berkowitz tells his story to a world who never wanted to listen.
The film documents modern slave trade through a number of African countries, under dictatorship rule. The filming was conducted both in public places, and sometimes with the use of hidden cameras, for high impact scenes of nudity, sex, and violence - and a few surprises, as slaves made out of peregrins to Asia, and slave traders paid in traveller checks.
2024, Los Angeles, CA, the city of angels. Plunging us into the moment, this is a visceral cinematic snapshot of the era. What remains is an inventive commentary on the pleasures and dangers of wielding a camera.
It was 24 hours with him. I saw him shake his ass with a friend. Scrubbing tile corners. Have egg salad for lunch. Buy cleaning products. Rehearse in the studio. Playing with children on the grass. In a huge theatre, review texts about scenes of decolonization. Smoke one, or two. Problematizing on the bus. Undressing on the couch in my house. Sleeping without fitting into the bed because you are too tall. I saw the sun bursting on your skin in the morning and said goodbye. I thought a standard session wouldn't encompass the complexity of an intimate recording. So I was his voyeur for 24 hours. Uninterrupted.
Kelvan describes his daily life as a deaf person in Montreal, with one small detail: he's part of the puppy community. Puppy-Play is a kind of role-playing game in which you adopt the personality and mentality of an animal, and is present in the LGBTQueer+ community.
Published in Paris in 1954, Story of O was an immediate bestseller and literary scandal: an elegantly written S&M fantasy that had all the hallmarks of being an autobiographical account by the pseudonymous Pauline Réage. In 1994 Dominique Aury, a mild-mannered, dowdy editor for France’s prestigious Gallimard press, revealed her authorship. Pola Rapaport explores Aury's inspiration, recreating the world of '50s literary Paris and setting it against dramatic sequences that bring the infamous book to life. The author as well as various French intellectuals expound on the thorny relationship between sexuality and power, submission and freedom, liberation and non-being.
This is a poetic film about The Penis becoming a diary with a unique story to tell. Penis Poetry is made in collaboration with Andre Medeiros Martins who wrote on his lovers' penises his personal thoughts. Andre's words reflect how much our modern society glorifies the exhibition of The Penis, how much we worship it and how much social media and apps allowed us to share our most private parts with the world.
The story of Robert Flanagan, a man who was born with cystic fibrosis and told he wouldn't live past 20, who through a unique odyssey of masochism, art and love found a way to live decades past his expiration date.
National Vampire is a feature-length documentary that explores vampire culture in the United States. To achieve this, the filmmakers spent more than two years traveling around the country, attending vampire-related events, and interviewing dozens of people involved in the vampire community. Shooting locations include a Vampire’s Ball held in New Orleans each Halloween, a vampire tour of San Francisco, and a New York City shop that “transforms” people into vampires. Also featured are a vampire “dentist” who makes fangs for a living, vampire role playing gamers in Dayton, Ohio, a vampire-themed magician, and a bloodthirsty Texas couple that claims to be the real thing. Going beyond the surface, National Vampire also explores a number of subcultures that overlap the vampire community, including the goth music scene, bondage and S&M, and blood fetishists who take part in piercing and full-body suspension rituals.
In this film, Laerte conjugates the body in the feminine, and scrutinizes concepts and prejudices. Not in search of an identity, but in search of un-identities. Laerte creates and sends creatures to face reality in the fictional world of comic strips as a vanguard of the self. And, on the streets, the one who becomes the fiction of a real character. Laerte, of all the bodies, and of none, complicates all binaries. In following Laerte, this documentary chooses to clothe the nudity beyond the skin we inhabit.
A strippers' convention and a major contest. The movie focuses on a few strippers, each with her own strong motive to win.
"TDS, derrière l'écran des travailleuses du sexe" is a deep dive into the lives of Betty, Anaïs, Noochka, Manon, and Barty. They have all ventured into the world of selling sexual content online. What pushes someone to take the step of signing up on these platforms? What are their motivations? What are the consequences on their personal lives? Why do some choose to stick with it for years, while others decide to stop for good?
The documentary depicts three women enjoying a weekend roleplaying as schoolgirls and participating in BDSM activities under the auspices of the cult Aristasia.
The Quays' interest in esoteric illusions finds its perfect realization in this fascinating animated lecture on the art of anamorphosis. This artistic technique, often used in the 16th- and 17th centuries, utilizes a method of visual distortion with which paintings, when viewed from different angles, mischievously revealed hidden symbols.
Documentary directed by W.K. Border, that which dives into the aspects of contemporary Gothic subculture, vampirism, and BDSM culture. Filmed in 1997 in California.
Graphic Sexual Horror takes a peek behind the terrifying facade behind the most notorious of bondage websites, exploring the dark mind of its artistic creator and asking hard questions about personal responsibility. Interviews reveal deep fascinations with bondage and sadomasochism that run parallel, and in fact become irreversibly entwined with the lure of money.
Documentary looking at how nudity has been used in the movies, sometimes shrewdly and other times without thought.
9to5 - Days in Porn focuses on the people behind a controversial and multi-billion dollar industry "The Adult Entertainment industry". It depicts their stories, each one different, unadorned and authentic, without glorification or prejudice. It delivers deep insight into their personal lives - from glamorous to grotesque - strange, fascinating, offensive, absurd and sometimes funny moments all at once.
In 1972, a seemingly typical shoestring budget pornographic film was made in a Florida hotel: "Deep Throat," starring Linda Lovelace. This film would surpass the wildest expectation of everyone involved to become one of the most successful independent films of all time. It caught the public imagination which met the spirit of the times, even as the self-appointed guardians of public morality struggled to suppress it, and created, for a brief moment, a possible future where sexuality in film had a bold artistic potential. This film covers the story of the making of this controversial film, its stunning success, its hysterical opposition along with its dark side of mob influence and allegations of the on set mistreatment of the film's star.
A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.
In this documentary, recovering addict and amputee John Wood finds himself in a stranger-than-fiction battle to reclaim his mummified leg from Southern entrepreneur Shannon Whisnant, who found it in a grill he bought at an auction and believes it therefore to be his rightful property.
Documentary about legendary Paramount producer Robert Evans, based on his famous 1994 autobiography.
Ten of Muhammad Ali's former rivals pay tribute to the three-time world heavyweight champion.
This searing investigative work shadows a group of activists risking unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ program raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic. Unfettered access and a remarkable approach to protecting anonymity exposes this under-reported atrocity–and an extraordinary group of people confronting evil.
A subjective documentary that explores various theories about hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick's classic film The Shining. Five very different points of view are illuminated through voice over, film clips, animation and dramatic reenactments.
An investigation of how Hollywood's fabled stories have deeply influenced how Americans feel about transgender people, and how transgender people have been taught to feel about themselves.
The most famous murder scene in movie history comprises 78 camera settings and 52 cuts: the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. 78/52 tells the story of the man behind the curtain and his greatest obsession.
Alex Gibney explores the phenomenon of Stuxnet, a self-replicating computer virus discovered in 2010 by international IT experts. Evidently commissioned by the US and Israeli governments, this malware was designed to specifically sabotage Iran’s nuclear programme. However, the complex computer worm ended up not only infecting its intended target but also spreading uncontrollably.
A documentary on the Z Channel, one of the first pay cable stations in the US, and its programming chief, Jerry Harvey. Debuting in 1974, the LA-based channel's eclectic slate of movies became a prime example of the untapped power of cable television.
While crafting his Grammy-nominated album "Astroworld," Travis Scott juggles controversy, fatherhood and career highs in this intimate documentary.
The courtroom and publicity battles between the superstar wrestler and the notorious website explode in a sensational trial all about the limits of the First Amendment and the new no holds barred nature of celebrity life in an internet dominated society.
Controversy erupts when an unassuming young man floods the American wine market with fake vintages valued in the millions, bamboozling the wine world elite, in this humorous and suspenseful tale of an ingenious con on the eve of the 2008 stock market crash.
A detailed account of the life and artistic career of legendary filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, from his early days as a video club manager to the scandalous fall in disgrace of producer Harvey Weinstein. A story about how to shoot eight great movies and become an icon of modern pop culture.
In 1999, Internet entrepreneur Josh Harris recruits dozens of young men and women who agree to live in underground apartments for weeks at a time while their every movement is broadcast online. Soon, Harris and his girlfriend embark on their own subterranean adventure, with cameras streaming live footage of their meals, arguments, bedroom activities, and bathroom habits. This documentary explores the role of technology in our lives, as it charts the fragile nature of dot-com economy.
50 years after the legendary fest, Barak Goodman’s electric retelling of Woodstock, from the point of view of those who were on the ground, evokes the freedom, passion, community, and joy the three-day music festival created.
When Steve Jobs died the world wept. But what accounted for the grief of millions of people who didn’t know him? This evocative film navigates Jobs' path from a small house in the suburbs, to zen temples in Japan, to the CEO's office of the world's richest company, exploring how Jobs’ life and work shaped our relationship with the computer. The Man in the Machine is a provocative and sometimes startling re-evaluation of the legacy of an icon.
Deep beneath the surface in the Syrian province of Ghouta, a group of female doctors have established an underground field hospital. Under the supervision of paediatrician Dr. Amani and her staff of doctors and nurses, hope is restored for some of the thousands of children and civilian victims of the ruthless Syrian civil war.
