O'Hare, Christopher

1996

Simon Harvey was a gay man unable to reconcile his gay feelings with his strict christian upbringing. At the age of 26 he killed himself. Simon's father said "To discover my son was gay was as bad as losing him." This film depicts the last six months of his life and examines how religious belief can be used to justify social prejudice.

“It hurts me to say good-bye. I wish ever so much that I could stay and live a healthy, normal life.” These words were written by 26-year-old Simon Harvey in a farewell letter to his parents. Simon wasn’t ill. He decided to commit suicide, driving to the Sussex countryside where he killed himself with his car’s exhaust fumes while the hymn ‘To God The Glory’ played on the car radio. Simon was a Christian and gay and was tormented in his attempts to reconcile these two parts of his life. Treading carefully through sensitive areas, Better Dead Than Gay reconstructs the background of the tragedy with the help of Harvey’s diaries and the recollections of his parents and friends and clergymen at whose churches he worshipped. “To discover my son was gay was as bad as losing him,” says Simon’s father. As a gay friend of Simon’s says, “Religion has a lot to answer for.”

Huston, Anjelica

1996

Inyang, Etang

1996

Badass Supermama is a playful, but questioning personal exploration of race, gender, sexuality, adolescent notions of beauty, body image and representation. A black lesbian grapples with ideas about race, sexuality, gender and her identification with `70s Blaxploitation Goddess Pam Grier.

Uhlmann, Tai
Ogren, Alessandra

1996

Dykes in San Francisco counterculture affirm their Judaism over intimate kitchen table interviews.

Tai Uhlmann and Alessandra Ogren's Bad Jews in My Kitchen is a black and white montage of Jewish dykes affirming their Judaism in intimate kitchen table interviews.

Child, Abigail

1996

A portrait of a homeless woman dropped off the economic grid — a vision into the delirium of displacement on New York's Lower East Side.

From Abigail Child, B/side, is an abstract exploration of urban homelessness framed by footage of the encampment known as "Dinkinsville" on the Lower East Side of New York. Child uses a montage of images and sounds that rhythmically pushes the viewer to see with eyes and emotions completely open. B/side is a portrait of a homeless woman at the edge of dystopia which implicates us all in her predicament.

Savell, Todd

1996

A spoof/homage to black and white and Piaf.

Savell, Todd

1996

A hysterical parody of Piaf, you’ll never be afraid of subtitles again.

Carolfi, Jerome

1996

A pyscho-sexual road trip through a dark night of the soul across the Western US with a soon-to-be ex-lover.

Ito, Takashi

1996

Morimura Yasumasa was filmed playing Marilyn Monroe from "The Seven Year Itch, " which visualizes an imagination responding to keywords like sex, death, masquerade and ostentation.

Minsker, Ethan H.

1996

Ethan Minsker's Anything Boys Can Do... is a documentary on women in the alternative music scene. The film explores the intersections between gender and art and asks whether one's sex is an advantage, a disadvantage, or neither. A wide range of bands are interviewed, including Vitapup, Thrust, Nicole Blackman, Maul Girls, the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, and our very own Tribe 8. Plus a sneak look at a new music video, Something To Brag About, from Exene and Stone Fox.