Bent Lens is proud to present "Club Q," a rousing behind-the-scenes (and in-your-face) account of the legendary San Francisco-based lesbian dance club. For fifteen years, DJ and founder Page Hodel spun the music for this renowned roving dance party throughout the Bay Area, and brought together women from all walks of life with her music. The group became so professional they even stationed dancers, choreographed by party regulars, around the dance floor to keep the mood and tempo moving throughout the evening.
Boulder-are filmmaker Kristen Wolf will introduce the film and answer questions afterward.
Club Q will be followed by No Secret Anymore.
Rocky Mountain premiere! Ever since its world premiere, when a sold out crowd in San Francisco gave it a standing ovation, "No Secret Anymore," has been picking up awards at festivals around the globe. And no wonder. Film maker Joan E. Biren, herself a pioneer lesbian activist, tells the remarkable story of two women who became partners in private life and public struggle and in the process created the modern lesbian civil rights movement. Beginning with a few friends who became The Daughters of Bilitis, they took on McCarthyism and then the homophobic wing of the women's movement.
In the half century since that historic beginning, they went on to ground-breaking work for lesbian mothers, sex education, the rights of battered women, and most recently the aging movement. A must see for anyone who lived through those years and a compelling history lesson for those who did not.
Washington, D.C. based filmmaker Joan E. Biren (JEB) will be on hand for discussion after the film. This film will be preceded by a showing of "Club Q."
In celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, Bent Lens Cinema is proud to present this outstanding film on the life of Bayard Rustin. Mr. Rustin could rightfully be called one of the forefathers of the very concept of empowerment, having engineered the 1963 March on Washington, the site of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s most famous, "I Have a Dream" speech. Most all other liberation movements that have followed, including those among People of Color, the Feminist movement, Gay Liberation, and Post-Colonial movements, have drawn inspiration from that singular achievement. Rustin was largely responsible for the practical application of MLK's non-violence strategy, an approach which achieved revolutionary and profoundly impactful results. Though Rustin was widely known to be gay in the Black community, even rumored to be MLK's lover,he inhabited a semi-closeted space for many of his activist years because of outing threats which attempted to undermine his credibility. As a result, Rustin worked behind the scenes for much of his career in order to avoid controversy for the Civil Rights movement.
The GLBT movement has borrowed heavily from Rustin's example, staging four successful D.C. Marches in his style, while sometimes forgetting their source. Like his contemporaries, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, also profiled in this festival, Bayard Rustin never confined himself to single-issue politics, and after more "radical" and often less-impactful upstarts began to seize the political stage during the Black Power late 60s, Rustin moved gracefully to other projects, maintaining his well-seasoned and time-tested approach to organizing. This film does justice in painting the complexity and the many facets of an underrecognized and true American hero who was literally Martin Luther King, Jr.'s right hand man.
Winner of the jury award for Best Documentary at NewFest 2003: The New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Louise Hogarth's "The Gift" is bound to be one of the most controversial and alarming films exhibited in Boulder this season, with its unblinking depiction of high-risk sexual behavior. In a climate of rising HIV infections among men who have sex with men and of increasingly ineffective safer-sex education, "The Gift" is a powerful examination of "bug chasers," HIV negative men who consciously seek "the gift" of infection through bareback sex with HIV positive men. The film contrasts portraits of those who willingly become infected‹either because they want to feel connected with their community or because they would rather have HIV than worry about getting it‹with the plight of older AIDS patients who, in spite of medication that has led many to believe that the battle has been won, still suffer the debilitating effects of the disease. Sure to prompt discussion and debate with its powerful message of HIV prevention and its graphic images of sero-conversion "parties," "The Gift" is a courageous exploration of a side of gay culture many would prefer to ignore.
A discussion panel will follow the film.
