What does it mean to truly see someone? Not just look, but see—through the layers of gender, performance, migration, trauma, joy. That’s the central question at the heart of Gazes In Short, by Gonella production - Part One, a handpicked collection of ten queer curated short documentaries now streaming on Guidedoc. In a world saturated with stories told through normative lenses, this program shatters that lens into a prism, allowing multiple spectrums of queer existence to refract, reflect, and glow with all their unfiltered intensity.
Rather than unifying under one tone or message, these ten films offer a mosaic of approaches—some raw and confrontational, others lyrical and meditative. They span geographies, generations, and genres, but are bound by a singular commitment: to center queer gazes not as anomalies, but as vital ways of experiencing and interpreting the world.
Whether focused on urban displacement, personal healing, artistic legacy, or trans identity in motion, Gazes In Short is less a curated program and more a political act of gathering—of preserving queer memory, questioning power, and imagining future forms of kinship.
Below are the ten documentaries that make up this rich offering, each a cinematic microcosm of queer defiance, beauty, and becoming.
A turtle. A caretaker. A question of happiness. This amazing documentary might be short and sweet, but its reflections on companionship, responsibility, and queerness are profound. This is a documentary that whispers gently and leaves a ripple of thought in its wake.
Western Iran. An earthquake hits. Time fractures. This short doc is a poetic exploration of survival, trauma, and identity in the aftermath of disaster—particularly for queer individuals who must navigate layered losses and silences.
Faith meets feminism in this powerful portrait of a Muslim woman breaking barriers to become a religious leader. Al Imam presents a nuanced look at gender, power, and spiritual reform in a setting where change feels both urgent and dangerous.
In the shadow of Brooklyn’s rising rents and falling landmarks, this gripping documentary captures the lives of street recyclers and local characters, documenting how queer identity and working-class resilience intertwine in the heart of a gentrified city.
Football is national myth, personal obsession, and generational grief in this lyrical piece from Argentina. Exploring queerness through the lens of sport and memory, this documentary is as much about forgiving oneself as it is about forgiving a nation.
Dance becomes testimony in this compelling documentary, where movement workshops unlock stories of gender, healing, and expression. The camera doesn’t just observe bodies—it listens to them. And in doing so, it captures a language that transcends words.
In the glitzy world of Shanghai fashion, designer Chen Chen shines. But behind the glamor lies a story of emotional complexity, queer desire, and the dual weight of visibility and vulnerability. Chen Chen is stylish with soul.
A poet and painter, freshly out of prison, navigates the raw terrain of reinvention. This is a meditative documentary piece on tattoos, trauma, and the quiet courage it takes to create a new life when the past never really lets go.
Set in rural France, this documentary about a cheesemaker is a slow, meditative exploration of labor, solitude, and queer presence outside urban narratives. It’s an unexpected gem that reminds us: queerness lives everywhere, even in curds and whey.
A 21-year-old genderqueer bar worker lays bare their search for intimacy, identity, and self-acceptance. Through fleeting moments and raw confessions, this insightful documentary explores what it means to be seen, beyond the body, beyond the label.
What Gazes In Short - Part One, makes abundantly clear is that there’s no singular queer story, no one way to come out, love, mourn, or thrive. Instead, these films offer multiple entry points—through language, location, gesture, and gaze—into lives lived between categories. They refuse the binaries not just of gender, but of genre: fiction vs. nonfiction, beauty vs. ugliness, voice vs. silence.
This is what makes the program so vital. It’s not just documenting queer lives—it’s queering documentary itself. From the underwater sensuality of Snowy to the forest ritualism of The Uninhabitable Ones, from football fields to recycling alleys, from Tehran to Bushwick, this collection shows us how queerness lives in the details. In glances, in movements, in rituals of food and fashion and mourning.
All ten short documentaries from Gazes In Short - Part One are now streaming on Guidedoc. Whether you’re here to discover new queer voices or to experience how nonfiction cinema can become art, movement, or meditation, this collection promises boldness in brevity.
Ready for more on queer film? Don’t miss our article on “Top 10 Documentaries to celebrate the anniversary of the LGBTQ+ Movement”—a deep dive into another powerful selection of queer storytelling on Guidedoc.
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