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This gap is already enormous and will inevitably widen over time. Existing and future generations of gay men will have little direct access to the stories and wisdom of the elders who created the world gay youth may take for granted. Additionally, for a number of complex reasons, communication between generations of gay men is often difficult and combined with all the losses from AIDS in the 1980s and the vastly different social and political climate in this era of gay marriage, the continuity of gay culture and history risks being lost. I’ve realized that unlike most minority groups, gay men (as with others in the LGBT spectrum) can’t readily learn our culture and history from our primarily non-gay parents. This idea emerges from my experiences over the past decade in making two major documentaries addressing San Francisco queer history. These may range in length from 10–90 minutes, as appropriate, and will be produced in documentary style, not simply as oral histories. I focus specifically on gay men (instead of the wider LGBT community) because this is the world that I know best and with which, as a 60-year-old gay man myself, I can engage as a peer rather than as an observer. Inescapably, these men are also survivors of the AIDS era.
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Emotionally reflective, historically informative interviews will capture histories of men whose gay lives long preceded Stonewall, and also those of the Gay Liberation generation. And thus I began to make historical documentaries.ĬONVERSATIONS WITH GAY ELDERS is a documentary storytelling project focused on older gay men-initially those currently in their 70s and older. Further, my experience of the epidemic was very much colored by having Holocaust history in my own family, and the awareness that gave me of the cathartic and long-lasting value of sharing painful, inspiring, and complex stories between generations. This is directly related to the deaths of so many men in the generation just above me-men who would have been my mentors, and whose memory I’ve wanted to preserve. I’ve often felt as if AIDS made me a premature elder in my community. In addition to creating a repository of passing history, it will also function as a vehicle for facilitating intergenerational dialogue and understanding.
Older gay men movies series#
In October of 2017, three of the CONVERSATIONS were co-presented in San Francisco by the Contemporary Jewish Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and and the San Francisco Public Library’s Koret Auditorium.īelow is my initial description (2014) of my intentions for CONVERSATIONS WITH GAY ELDERS, excerpted from a grant proposal.ĬONVERSATIONS WITH GAY ELDERS will be a series of single-character video documentaries of varying length, focused on older gay men. Response, and the discussions at each of these screenings has been incredibly enthusiastic. The screenings have varied in form – some have been screenings of one “conversation” in its entirety, others have been hour-long programs of excerpts of the various elders (two in Portland, four at all the others) followed by discussions with the editors, and-in San Francisco-with two of the elders. There have been screenings in Amsterdam and Berlin. Though I didn’t initially conceive of this for public screenings, I’ve already done numerous film festival presentations of the work-in 2018 at BFI Flare in London, in 20 at QDoc in Portland, at Frameline in San Francisco, at the Oslo Fusion Film Festival in Norway, Outfest in LA, Newfest in New York, and at the Twist Seattle Queer Film Festival. As described in my original proposal (see below), the idea was to allow the project to take shape and evolve organically, a “process-oriented” approach that suits my temperament and creative style. Unlike my prior documentary work, and unlike most film projects, CONVERSATIONS WITH GAY ELDERS did not start out with a predetermined distribution plan, or even a clearly defined “product.” This was intentional. The mentoring, and cross-generational aspects of this project, which were not part of my original proposal, have been extraordinarily rich. I’m an on-camera participant in all but the first one that was shot.Įach is edited by a different young gay man-two of whom were, at the time, in their 20s and three in their 30s. There are six completed episodes, ranging from 50-75 minutes in length. The production component of CONVERSATIONS WITH GAY ELDERS has ended.