In the past couple of decades there has been a lot of effort put into rediscovering and recording LGBT history. To a certain extent it has been full-on detective work, due to the fact oppression – both legal and societal – meant very little about the history of gay people was documented, and if it was, it was from a one-sided, negative perspective.
Even so, due to the lack of documentary evidence created at the time, it’s still often diffulcult to get a real picture of what it was like to be queer in the past. Director Stu Maddux has set out to help address that with Reel In The Closet, which introduces us to a bunch of archivists whose mission is to digitise and preserve queer home movies, secretly preserved news pieces and other footage.
The documentary includes plenty of that footage, from a lesbian nightclub 65 years ago to rare scenes from the White Night Riots, which were sparked after Harvey Milk’s killer recieved a lenient sentence, along with plenty of peeps into the everyday lives of gays and trans people in decades gone by.
The movie is currently doing the festival circuit, including a screening a couple of days ago at DOC NYC. You can watch the fascinating trailer below.
https://vimeo.com/142776153
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