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Prom is a landmark of life in the United States that’s notoriously fraught with teenage anxieties, even if, for many, it’s also a meaningful and joyful rite of passage. But for members of the LGBTQ+ community – and especially those who came of age decades ago – it can be an occasion further complicated by their sexuality or gender identity. For some, this meant attending while closeted, or feeling otherwise unable to express their authentic selves. For others, this meant skipping the event altogether, sometimes because same-sex dates weren’t allowed. The US director Luisa Conlon’s short Senior Prom documents a unique event in Los Angeles where LGBTQ+ retirees can – often for the very first time – attend a formal dance where they feel accepted. The film moves between the exuberant event itself and the life stories of its guests and, in doing so, draws out the hard-earned advancements in LGTBQ+ rights over the past several generations.
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Nature and landscape
Take a serene hike through an ancient forest, inspired by a Miyazaki masterpiece
6 minutes
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Design and fashion
The mundane becomes mesmerising in this deep dive into segmented displays
14 minutes
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Architecture
Tour the European architecture that dreamed of a wondrous, fictitious China
16 minutes
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Spirituality
Trek alongside spiritual pilgrims on a treacherous journey across Pakistan
6 minutes
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Thinkers and theories
Photographs offer a colonialist window to the past – one that must be challenged
14 minutes
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Animals and humans
An artist and ants collaborate on an exhibit of ‘tiny Abstract Expressionist paintings’
5 minutes
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Mathematics
How a curious question about colouring maps changed mathematics forever
9 minutes
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Meaning and the good life
The world turns vivid, strange and philosophical for one plane crash survivor
16 minutes
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Cities
The rise and fall of Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong’s infamous urban monolith
18 minutes