A Gay Mormon Missn: A Conversatn wh Johnny Townsend

Contents:

• CONVERSATIONS WITH GAY ELDERS
• ORIGS: CONVERSATNS WH GAY ELRS
• CONVERSATNS WH GAY ELRS: JACK LASNER
• CONVERSATNS WH GAY ELRS: GENE FEDORKO
• CONVERSATNS WH GAY ELRS
• FILM SERI LKS GAY GENERATNS
• SCREENG | CONVERSATNS WH GAY ELRS: PRE-STONEWALL PERSPECTIV
• A GAY MORMON MISSN: A CONVERSATN WH JOHNNY TOWNSEND
• CONVERSATNS WH GAY ELRS: DANIEL MALONEY
• BRGG GAY ELRS’ STORI ALIVE FOR THE NEXT GENERATN
• FILM SERI LKS GAY GENERATNS

CONVERSATIONS WITH GAY ELDERS

CONVERSATIONS WITH GAY ELDERS is a seri of 6 -pth terviews and nversatnal documentari foced on gay men whose journeys of self-disvery prece the era of Stonewall and Gay Liberatn.

CONVERSATIONS WITH GAY ELDERS was a cross-generatnal llaboratn which producer/ director David Weissman (then his early 60s) worked partnership wh gay men their 20s and 30s as edors to profile gay men their 70s and 80s. Kerby Lrdale was a long heterosexual marriage after first explorg his homosexualy the 1950s.

Pl began very actively explorg gay life his early teens and an early enunter a cisg spot was to change his life. AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTAs gay, lbian and transgenr muni bee ls stigmatized — part thanks to mentor-mentee relatnships — will be easier for young people to image a life where they actually grow old?

ORIGS: CONVERSATNS WH GAY ELRS

He had ntacted me on Jack’d, a datg and social app that’s particularly popular among gay and trans men of lor.

He wasn’t beg leral, of urse, but the msage was clear: “The gay muny publish your obuary at 40 if you live that long, ” he said. Gay and lbian elrs are ls likely to have children who n re for them olr age, acrdg to Ilan H. Lookg back on the 50 years sce the uprisg at Stonewall accelerated the morn gay rights movement, I wanted to know if the procs of agg had changed.

As a young gay man, I wonred: After 50 years of fightg for rights and visibily, have queer elrs succeed repturg their digny? And so I traveled to five stat, meetg queer “elrs” — gay, lbian, bisexual or trans persons over 50 — and their mente, young people for whom Stonewall is a distant memory, as well as scholars, field rearchers and olr people who jt wanted to share their stori.

CONVERSATNS WH GAY ELRS: JACK LASNER

” Gay people “have to learn the streets a totally different way than straight people do.

“Back the day, I was jt gay, girl.

CONVERSATNS WH GAY ELRS: GENE FEDORKO

” The nversatn turned to Nigel Shelby, a gay 15-year-old om Huntsville, Ala., who mted suici April after years of relentls bullyg.

”I wonred how much my life would have changed if, at 24, I’d had an elr gay man to help life make sense to me. When he was younger, “olr gay men took re of younger gay men, bee that was their job. Palm Sprgs is a rort town about two hours east of Los Angel, known for s betiful weather and agg gay male populatn.

She shared stori of “fdg her wgs” dog work wh Las Vegas’ largt AIDS service center the early ’90s, at the height of the AIDS epimic; of fai ung over the disveri that their children were both gay and dyg, of the of parti that happened on AIDS wards, of the muni of lbians who spent time makg quilts for strangers, of ls fortunate gay young men who died terrified, alone and fotten. Kim Chasen and Mariam Moiseyev on the ‘eedom beg olr and gay’ Jordan/The New York TimTwo members of one of those chosen muny, Kim Chasen and Mariam Moiseyev, 65 and 67, have been iends for 28 years and active members of Palm Sprgs’ lbian muny.

CONVERSATNS WH GAY ELRS

“I feel there’s a certa eedom beg olr and gay — ’s like, what are you gog to do to me now that hasn’t already been done? ]The productn ponent of CONVERSATIONS WITH GAY ELDERS has end. I’m an on-mera participant all but the first one that was is eded by a different young gay man—two of whom were, at the time, their 20s and three their 30s.

The mentorg, and cross-generatnal aspects of this project, which were not part of my origal proposal, have been extraordarily my prr documentary work, and unlike most film projects, CONVERSATIONS WITH GAY ELDERS did not start out wh a pretermed distributn plan, or even a clearly fed “product.

FILM SERI LKS GAY GENERATNS

Rponse, and the discsns at each of the screengs has been credibly October of 2017, three of the CONVERSATIONS were -prented San Francis by the Contemporary Jewish Mm, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and and the San Francis Public Library’s Koret is my ial scriptn (2014) of my tentns for CONVERSATIONS WITH GAY ELDERS, excerpted om a grant proposal. Conversatns Wh Gay Elrsa documentary projectDavid Weissman, producer/director[origal proposal, 2014]CONVERSATIONS WITH GAY ELDERS will be a seri of sgle-character vio documentari of varyg length, foced on olr gay men. CONVERSATIONS WITH GAY ELDERS is a documentary storytellg project foced on olr gay men—ially those currently their 70s and olr.

Emotnally reflective, historilly rmative terviews will pture histori of men whose gay liv long preced Stonewall, and also those of the Gay Liberatn generatn.

SCREENG | CONVERSATNS WH GAY ELRS: PRE-STONEWALL PERSPECTIV

I foc specifilly on gay men (stead of the wir LGBT muny) bee this is the world that I know bt and wh which, as a 60-year-old gay man myself, I n engage as a peer rather than as an may range length om 10–90 mut, as appropriate, and will be produced documentary style, not simply as oral ia emerg om my experienc over the past makg two major documentari addrsg San Francis queer history. I’ve realized that unlike most mory groups, gay men (as wh others the LGBT spectm) n’t readily learn our culture and history om our primarily non-gay parents.

A GAY MORMON MISSN: A CONVERSATN WH JOHNNY TOWNSEND

Addnally, for a number of plex reasons, munitn between generatns of gay men is often difficult; and bed wh all the loss om AIDS the 1980s and the vastly different social and polil climate this era of gay marriage, the ntuy of gay culture and history risks beg lost. Existg and future generatns of gay men will have ltle direct accs to the stori and wisdom of the elrs who created the world gay youth may take for granted.

I equently fd myself entranced nversatn wh gay elrs, thkg “Damn, someone really needs to terview this person! In this current project, the foc is on pturg the sence and plexy of each dividual’s life journey as a gay man. Many gay men of my generatn fondly remember beg “mentored” by olr gay men— navigatg the obstacl created by homophobia, as well as accsg the unique rich of our inti as gay men.

CONVERSATNS WH GAY ELRS: DANIEL MALONEY

Many gay elrs who survived AIDS avoid talkg about the past bee there is equently so much pa volved, bed wh a fear that talkg about the past mak them seem old.

And there is a great al of unrlyg fear of awkwardns, particularly around sexualy, that keeps olr and younger gay men om is a huge part of our history, but a very limed part. The pre-Stonewall generatn will be the last generatn of gay men to have been almost universally stigmatized, crimalized, and officially emed “sick.

BRGG GAY ELRS’ STORI ALIVE FOR THE NEXT GENERATN

CONVERSATIONS WITH GAY ELDERS is very much a procs-oriented project. And bee this self-disvery procs was so tangible to dienc, many mented that watchg WE WERE HERE ved them to a ep nnectn not only wh the people on-screen but also to their own emotnal journey unexpected CONVERSATIONS WITH GAY ELDERS, I want to foc that terview/documentatn procs on eply pturg the sence of dividual gay men’s personal journeys through much harsher tim, and how shaped them. I’m a gay man begng to enter my own elr years.

FILM SERI LKS GAY GENERATNS

” But the heart of my tentn is to honor and prerve the stori of the last generatn of pletely stigmatized gay men, so that future generatns n unrstand how the circumstanc of their world me to be. AdultsscreengstalksThursday, Oct 26, 2017 • 6:30–8pmADMISSION: $5 Members; $10 generalFilmmaker David Weissman’s Conversatns wh Gay Elrs is a seri of -pth terviews and nversatnal documentari foced on gay men whose journeys of self-disvery prece the era of Stonewall and gay liberatn.