Angels In Whiteface is an upcoming feature documentary about queer and trans people who refuse to disappear. Our project began in 2024, in the aftermath of a U.S. election that signaled a new escalation of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and legislation: attacks on drag, gender-affirming healthcare, classroom speech, and the freedom to be visible. For many queer and trans people, the question is no longer whether these attacks are happening, but how to respond.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have been answering that question for nearly fifty years.

Founded in San Francisco in 1979, the Sisters are a global order of queer, trans, and activist nuns who use drag, satire, and community service to confront stigma, raise money, care for vulnerable populations, and advocate for LGBTQ+ communities. They emerged during a period of rising conservatism and came of age during the AIDS crisis, when they visited the sick, organized fundraisers, marched in protest, and created spaces where queer people could gather openly and without shame.

Angels In Whiteface brings you along to serve in their ministry. Instead of dwelling on the forces attacking LGBTQ+ communities, the film follows the people building something in response. It moves between the Sisters' origins in the AIDS era and their work today, drawing on archival footage and intimate interviews with the members behind the whiteface. The result is a portrait of how humor, public presence, and acts of service become tools for organizing, connection, and cultural survival, and of why that work matters more now than it has in decades.

Your donation funds the production behind that story: the filming, the archival research, and the work of bringing nearly fifty years of queer resistance to the screen.

Angels In Whiteface is a fiscally-sponsored project of The Film Collaborative (EIN: 32-0295081).

If you are looking to give a gift of $5,000 or more, please reach out to the team at giving@thesisters.film.

Pay Your Tithes (Make a Donation)