Randy Barbato Filmography

Occupation:: Director, Executive Producer, Producer, Screenwriter
Biography:: With his life and creative partner Fenton Bailey, filmmaker Randy Barbato carved a distinctive niche in film and television with his nonfiction works about such intriguing pop-culture subjects as the infamously groomed ex-wife of fallen TV evangelist Jim Bakker in The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2000)...Read More

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When I Knew

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: When I Knew features interviews with sixteen different homosexual men and women that each began with the same, "When did you know?" The answers offer a mosaic of responses that offer insight into how differences in sexuality are experienced and internalized by gays and lesbians. ~ Perry Seibert Read More

2008
Heidi Fleiss: The Would-Be Madam of Crystal

Crew: Director

Actors: Heidi Fleiss

Synopsis: Inside Deep Throat and Party Monster collaborators Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato pool their talents once again to trace erstwhile Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss' ill-fated attempt to establish the nation's first-ever legal brothel for female clients. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide Read More

2008
Tori & Dean: Inn Love [TV Series]

Crew: Producer

2007
Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema

Actors: Todd Haynes, Ang Lee, Jennie Livingston, Heather Matarazzo, John Cameron Mitchell

Synopsis: Gay, lesbian, and transgender filmmakers, actors, and critics explore the history of queer cinema in this made-for-cable documentary. Eschewing any overarching narration, co-directors Lesli Klainberg and Lisa Ades illustrate archival footage and film clips with dozens of interviews. They also Read More

2006
Miss Navajo

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: Billy Luther's documentary Miss Navajo explores the kind of pageant even pageant-haters can get behind -- one without swimsuits, which values brains over beauty. Each year in Navajo Nation, a select group of young Navajo women compete for the honor of Miss Navajo, a community ambassadorship whose Read More

2006
Inside Deep Throat

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato follow up Party Monster by returning to the documentary form of their most popular film The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Rather than examining evangelists-cum-gay icons, this time the duo takes aim at the cultural phenomenon that is and was Deep Throat, the Read More

2/11/05
TransGeneration [TV Series]

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: Four transgendered people navigate the university experience in this six-part documentary series. Raci, a hearing-impaired Filipino undergraduate at California State University, Los Angeles, juggles her academic aspirations with her desire to pass for a biological female and her need to buy Read More

2005
Sports Kids Moms & Dads [TV Series]

Crew: Executive Producer

2005
Camp Michael Jackson

Crew: Executive Producer

2005
Tammy Faye: Death Defying

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Tammy Faye Messner

2005
Showbiz Moms & Dads [TV Series]

Crew: Executive Producer

2004
The Hidden Führer: Debating the Enigma of Hitler's Sexuality

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: Was Adolf Hitler a homosexual? Lothar Machtan is a well-respected German historian who, in 2001, published a book called The Hidden Hitler, in which he speculated that the infamous Nazi leader was gay in his secret life. What was the basis for Machtan's theory? And how would our perspective on Hitler Read More

2004
Flops 101: Lessons From the Biz

Crew: Executive Producer

2004
Gay Republicans

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Maurice Bonamigo, Mark Harris, Steve May, Caroline Newman, Terry Hamilton

Synopsis: The 2004 presidential election left Log Cabin, the gay republican organization, in a state of extreme turmoil. President Bush had taken an open stand against gay marriage, effectively forcing the members of Log Cabin to chose what was more important to each of them: being gay or being republican. Read More

2004
Party Monster

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Macaulay Culkin, Seth Green, Chloë Sevigny, Natasha Lyonne, Justin Hagan

Synopsis: After profiling Monica Lewinsky, Billy Haynes, and Tammy Faye Bakker, documentarians Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato make their feature debut with this true-life tale of the rapid climb and lurid demise of a flamboyant young club promoter in late-'80s/early-'90s Manhattan. Based on James St. Read More

9/5/03
The Reality of Reality: Everything New is Old

Crew: Executive Producer

2003
The Award Show Awards Show

Crew: Executive Producer

2003
The Reality of Reality: America's Instant Idols

Crew: Executive Producer

2003
School's Out: The Life of a Gay High School in Texas

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: Jeremy Simmons makes his directorial debut with the slick documentary School's Out: The Life of a Gay High School in Texas. Originally aired on MTV, the film examines the lives of a few students at Walt Whitman High School near Dallas, TX. The private school is on the brink of closing its doors Read More

2003
Gay Hollywood

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Dustin Lance Black, Q. Allan Brocka, Robert Laughlin, Micah McCain, Benjamin Morgan

Synopsis: Another presentation of the American Movie Channel's AMC Project anthology, Gay Hollywood follows five openly gay men, all employed (not always gainfully) in show business, as they discuss the ups and downs of their Hollywood careers. The quintet includes two aspiring screenwriters, Lance and Read More

2003
Dark Roots: The Unauthorized Anna Nicole

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: William H. Macy, Anna Nicole Smith

Synopsis: More tabloid filmmaking from the team responsible for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, this 75-minute cable documentary profiles America's favorite model turned-gold digger-turned-TV "star" Anna Nicole Smith. Launching her career as a centerfold model, the Texas-born Smith quickly rises to superstardom as Read More

2003
Women on Top: Hollywood and Power

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Chloë Sevigny

Synopsis: This one-hour cable documentary is a paean to the "new face" of the Hollywood power structure, which for many years was a boys-only club. But thanks to the ascendancy of female superstars and the success of such female-engendered projects as My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Read More

2003
The Reality of Reality: How Real is Real?

Crew: Executive Producer

2003
The Reality of Reality: Behind the Scenes

Crew: Executive Producer

2003
Des Hommes et Dieux

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Blondine, Innocente, Alex Nyborg Madsen, Fritzner, Nazmiye Erol

Synopsis: Anthropologist Anne Lescot and filmmaker Laurence Magliore team up to direct the documentary Des Hommes et Dieux (Of Men and Gods). Shot with digital video, the hour-long film concerns several gay men in Haiti who actively pursue voodoo religious practices. Several different men and a few priests Read More

2003
The Reality of Reality [TV Documentary Series]

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: Narrated by actor Kyle MacLachlan, the five-part cable miniseries The Reality of Reality investigated the then-current reality show craze. Tracing the genre from its roots in such golden-age TV efforts as Truth or Consequences and The Gong Show, the series offered interviews with the producers of Read More

2003
Monica in Black and White

Crew: Director, Producer

2002
Andy Warhol: The Complete Picture

Crew: Producer

Actors: Julian Rhind-Tutt

Synopsis: Andy Warhol: The Complete Picture is a three-part documentary series originally broadcast on Channel 4 in the U.K. The program profiles the life and career of pop artist Andy Warhol, starting with his early days as an advertising designer to his death in 1987. Narrated by Julian Rhind-Tutt. In Read More

2002
Out of the Closet, Off the Screen: The William Haines Story

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Christopher Lawford, Chris Allen, Herb Gore, Bod Wildman, Stockard Channing

Synopsis: While all but forgotten today, between 1926 and 1935, William Haines was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, an affable leading man with cocky charm and a self-depreciating comic touch. Haines enjoyed his first major hit with the collegiate football comedy Brown of Harvard, and several years Read More

2001
The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: RuPaul, Tammy Faye Messner

Synopsis: RuPaul narrates this affectionate look at everyone's favorite televangelist/living cosmetic display: Tammy Faye Bakker. The eldest of eight children in rural Minnesota, Tammy Faye married Jim Bakker in 1960, and soon they found a following on the gospel circuit. This eventually led to a gig on Read More

7/28/00
101 Rent Boys

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: From the makers of The Eyes of Tammy Faye and Party Monster comes this lurid look at the seamy world of street hustlers. Paid 50 dollars for their time, 101 male prostitutes -- spanning all ages, ethnicities, and personal backgrounds -- are questioned by the filmmakers about their lives. Over the Read More

2000
Party Monster

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Michael Alig

Synopsis: With a short 57-minute running time calculated for TV timeslots, this documentary was partially financed by Cinemax and UK's Channel 4. Staged simulations are smoothly integrated with legit footage to jigsaw together a portrait of Michael Alig, serving time for manslaughter when this film was Read More

1998
The Real Ellen Story

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Comedian Ellen DeGeneres' decision to publicly announce her lesbianism as her onscreen character did the same, altered the way mainstream media portrays homosexuality. The Real Ellen Story, an acclaimed British documentary, provides an intimate view of the controversy surrounding DeGeneres' move. Read More

1998