Seed Money

Before Chuck Holmes, gay men rarely saw themselves as the heroes of their own fantasies. An Indiana boy who arrived in San Francisco in the early 1970s, Holmes built Falcon Studios into the most influential name in gay adult entertainment and, in the process, helped define the post-Stonewall image of gay masculinity. Michael Stabile's documentary traces his rise from mail-order entrepreneur to millionaire philanthropist and major Democratic donor — a man whose money helped build the modern LGBTQ political movement, even as polite society kept him at arm's length for how he made it. With John Waters, Jake Shears, Chi Chi LaRue, and Jeff Stryker, Seed Money is a sharp, funny, unexpectedly moving portrait of an outsider who bankrolled a revolution.