Frameline Distribution, the only nonprofit distributor dedicated solely to LGBTQ+ film, is thrilled to announce the acquisition of Dr. Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian’s Doppelgängers³. After premiering at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival, the documentary screened at the 48th San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival (Frameline48) — the world’s largest and longest-running LGBTQ+ film festival hosted by arts and media nonprofit Frameline.
Doppelgängers³, Ben Hayoun-Stépanian’s fifth documentary feature, is a freewheeling filmic essay-meets-documentary, which takes questions of gender, history, and free thinking to the frontiers of space exploration. Frameline Distribution, Frameline’s 44-year-old distribution arm, will hold North American rights to the film. As Frameline Distribution’s latest acquisition, Doppelgängers³ joins a catalog that includes Marlon Riggs’ Tongues Untied, Jenni Olson’s Blue Diary, and Sam Feder’s Disclosure, among many other groundbreaking queer and trans films.
“[The film] challenges us to defy power structures and reject planetary exploitation by letting go of the constraints of borders, gender, and religion to embrace what diversity could be in the vast landscape of our imaginations,” writer Angelique Smith noted in Frameline48’s program. Featuring music by Pussy Riot, Colin Self, Mirrored Fatality, and Asmodessa, Doppelgängers³ was made with the support of the BFI Doc Society Fund, awarding National Lottery funding. A Grant for This Film Was Generously Provided by the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program with support from Sandbox Films.
”I am so thrilled and honored to be able to work with Frameline Distribution, which represents a roster of avant-garde directors, to bring my new film to North American audiences,” Dr. Ben Hayoun-Stépanian said. “Doppelgängers³ is a visual and sonic experience on diasporic and ecofeminist futures in space at a critical time where the dream of space exploration is increasingly a concern of private corporations and the super wealthy. More than a conventional science documentary, Doppelgängers³ confronts ideas of extraction, colonization and profiteering that have wrought so much damage on Earth—and it urges a reconsideration of space exploration through a lens that values inclusivity, queer, and transnational thinking.”
Coinciding with the acquisition, Doppelgängers³ will be shown at a private screening at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) on February 19 at SOHO House Berlin. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Dr. Ben Hayoun-Stépanian, who was selected as one of the “world’s top 200 filmmakers” for Berlinale Talents in 2025 from a pool of 3,800 applicants from 123 countries, and Allegra Madsen, Frameline’s executive director and one of the Berlinale’s 2025 Teddy Award jury members. Frameline Distribution plans to give Doppelgängers³ a limited theatrical release in major cities across the US in fall 2025.
“Doppelgängers³ is one of the most exciting uses of documentary and we’re thrilled to add the film to Frameline Distribution’s catalog,” said Matthew Wong, Frameline’s distribution manager. “Nelly brings a playful authenticity to the film that makes larger-than-life ideas feel accessible and universal, while bringing in queerness to envision this necessary inclusive space.”
ABOUT DR. NELLY BEN HAYOUN-STÉPANIAN
Dr. Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian (she/they) is an artist and director who works with leading scientists and engineers to devise subversive events and experiences. An advocate for plurality, she documents and builds platforms that support freedom of thinking, the creation of organized communities and public events, and expeditions and projects with socio-political impacts. Some of their collaborators include Kid Cudi, The Avalanches, Beck, Bobby Womack, Damon Albarn, Maywa Denki, The Prodigy, and Bruce Sterling.
In 2012 she established the International Space Orchestra—the world’s first orchestra of NASA scientists. Among their many other pursuits, Ben Hayoun-Stépanian is the founder of the tuition-free University of the Underground, which includes board members and activists like Professor Noam Chomsky, Pussy Riot, and Professor Arjun Appadurai. Ben Hayoun-Stépanian’s other films include The International Space Orchestra (2013), Disaster Playground (2015), and I Am (Not) A Monster (2019), which premiered at the London Film Festival and was nominated for a Grierson Award. Nelly is one of the selected 'world’s top 200 filmmakers' selected over 3800 applications from 123 countries joining Berlinale Talents in 2025.
ABOUT FRAMELINE
Frameline’s mission is to change the world through the power of queer cinema. As a media arts nonprofit, Frameline’s integrated programs connect filmmakers and audiences in San Francisco and around the globe. Frameline provides critical funding and artist support for emerging LGBTQ+ filmmakers, reaches hundreds of thousands with a collection of over 300 films distributed worldwide, and creates an international stage for the world’s best LGBTQ+ film through the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival and additional year-round screenings and cinematic events.