2019

The Lavender Scare documents the vicious witch hunt begun in the ’50’s (and lasting for decades) to purge the federal government of workers suspected of being homosexual. The Lavender Scare shows how tens of thousands of gay and lesbian Americans were interrogated, lost jobs and careers. The actions of the government stirred a sense of outrage and activism that helped ignite the movement for LGBTQ+ rights. Interviews with key figures in the social justice campaign tell the story in dramatic fashion. In so doing, the documentary preserves a long lost part of Cold War history.

Filmmakers Barbara Hammer, Su Friedrich, Rose Troche, Cheryl Dunye, Yvonne Welbon, Yoruba Richen, Desiree Akhavan, Vicky Du, Jenni Olson, and others share moving and often hilarious stories from their lives and discuss how they’ve expressed queer identity through film. As film critic B. Ruby Rich says in the documentary’s trailer, “Filmmaking went hand in hand with activism. There really was a sense in which we were all trying to make it a new world.”

When Lorraine Hansberry’s now classic A Raisin in the Sun premiered on Broadway in 1959 (the first play by a Black woman to do so) actress Ruby Dee recalls marveling how it “opened a new chapter in theater, that included Black people.” While most may know the widely studied and performed A Raisin in the Sun as their only reference point for Hansberry, the documentary Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart makes abundantly clear that there is much more to know about the author.

Fornés was an integral member of New York’s vibrant experimental theater scene in the 1960s and ’70s, alongside Edward Albee, Lanford Wilson, and John Guare. Outside theater circles, she’s probably remembered more for her relationship with Susan Sontag than for her Obie Award–winning plays. While this film touches on “the love of my life,” as Fornés calls Sontag, its real focus is Fornés’ intuitive creative process and her influence on contemporary theater.

»Tanya’s 6 favorite web series, podcasts, video games, and other digital media stories from 2019!