Double Bill Before Stonewall A Place of Rage
Before Stonewall
Revolt, She Said: Women and Film after ’68
So much more than a brilliant documentary about LGBTQ+ life in the USA before the 1969 Stonewall riots, Greta Schiller’s perception-changing film places its audience in the presence of legends in their own lifetimes. From Queen of Lesbian Pulp Ann Bannon revealing Beebo Brinker’s secrets, to poet-activist Audre Lorde putting her finger on the essential moment the queer underground joined hands with the Civil Rights movement, the film travels from Harlem speakeasies to McCarthyism via Rosie the Riveter, showing a community and culture ready to explode by 1968.
Deploying a treasure trove of archive footage and historical songs laced with double entendres, this incredibly important documentary shows that we’ve always been here, been queer, and ready to riot.
“A landmark film about gay and lesbian rights — an utterly fascinating slice of social history” – The Guardian
Accompanied by the short film She Wanted Green Lawns
Dir Sarah Turner | UK 1989 | 4 mins
Featuring the Carpenters song ‘Close To You’, this is an ode to love and fantasy. Filmed in a gay bar, the roving camera hesitates on a woman’s face, on some lilies, on small groups of people drinking and enjoying themselves and on the proverbial kiss between two women. As if on cue, ten lesbians gather in line at the bar and nonchalantly perform a synchronised dance. A sublime fantasy.
- BBFC rating
- 15
- Year
- 1984
- Running time
- 86 mins
- Country
- USA
- Other features
- DOC
- Director
- Greta Schiller
A Place of Rage
Revolt, She Said: Women and Film after ’68
Want an urgent history of African American women driving the civil rights, Black power and feminist movements that you can dance to? Featuring Prince and Janet Jackson as the spot-on soundtrack to interviews with Alice Walker and Angela Davis, A Place of Rage is our kind of revolution.
Pratibha Parmar weaves the story of the 1960s civil rights movement and 1980s LGBT rights movement together in a reminder that the struggle continues because of such leaders. June Jordan’s ‘Poem about Police Violence’ is just one of many moments that still hit home.
The film will have a special introduction from Nazmia Jamal
Accompanied by the short film Nice Colored Girls
Dir Tracey Moffatt | Australia 1987 | 16 mins
In an Australian city, two Aboriginal girls plan a night out on the town at the expense (in both senses) of a white ‘Captain’. Brilliantly intercutting their story is an account of first contact, as an English explorer ‘surveys’ young Aboriginal women. The modern-day girls skip away laughing at the end of Tracey Moffatt’s incendiary film, leaving us unsettled.
- Year
- 1991
- Running time
- 54 mins
- Country
- USA
- Other features
- DOC
- Director
- Pratibha Parmar