On the outskirts of Beirut, SIRENS follows the emotional journey of Lilas and Shery, co-founders and guitarists of the Middle East's first all-female metal band, as they wrestle with friendship, sexuality and destruction in their pursuit of becoming thrash metal rock stars. Directed by Lebanese-American woman director Rita Baghdadi, SIRENS is a completely unprecedented look at a Beirut-based Lebanese queer women’s heavy metal band and their trials and tribulations of trying to be their authentic selves in the most liberal country in the Middle East.

In 2017 and 2019 respectively, Gemmel “Juelz” Moore and Timothy “Tim” Dean, two gay black men, both died of a meth overdose at the now-infamous apartment of Ed Buck, a once influential Democratic donor, businessman and LGBTQ+ political activist. The deaths sent shockwaves through LA’s LGBTQ+ community and particularly West Hollywood, LA’s gay Mecca. The ensuing media circus cooked up a spicy concoction of sex, drugs, race and politics, but had no appetite for the in-depth human stories of who the young men truly were. This documentary looks at Gemmel and Tim’s parallel walks of life told by the friends who loved them: memories, correspondence, things they did and didn’t share with each other, and the forces that led them to their tragic fate.

São Paulo, in a dystopian future not so very far from the present. A virus is circulating, one that mainly attacks the brain and the ability to remember. A state that has forgotten a past marked by colonialism and dictatorship desperately awaits some indeterminate “Golden Phase.” Three young queer people drift through a city bled dry by the pandemic and rampant capitalism, remembering each another’s late lovers, sharing their experiences with HIV, getting makeup tips for masked faces and ultimately coming together with others forgotten by society for an antique revue in the salon of a singer named Mirta.