ACT UP 25 memories

SF Pride 1990; photo: L.A.

While I am a great one for marking anniversaries, I almost let slip a very big one: the 25th anniversary of ACT UP protests at the Sixth International Conference on AIDS. Not that I forgot about the actions. They were my coming of age as an activist. I only joined ACT UP in the weeks leading up to the protests and was a very nervous legal observer at some of the demos during that week in June. But, I decided to put my body on the line, as it were, and join in the Women's Day Action, which was June 22, 1990, 25 years ago today.

I wrote a bit about this time in my recently completed MRes dissertation, which I quote below.

Coming out in 1989 was not about exercising personal freedom, and it certainly was not about donning the cloak of respectability to be like everyone else, join the military or get married. It meant joining a community under siege. Once I came out, I knew I had a responsibility to this community, and I was quick to join direct action groups ACT UP and then Queer Nation, seeking to do my bit. I do not think this Generation Y (or whatever they are called) necessarily has this raison d’être. As Jose Muñoz writes in Disidentifications, “The social is both a stage and a battlefield” (Muñoz 1999, p. 199). Every day we need to pick our battles carefully. And ACT UP exemplified this in its tactics. Many members of ACT UP made it their business to get arrested. One of my comrades, Peggy Sue (she described the moniker as her nom de guerre), was quite keen on it, turning her arrests into a kind of performance art. She had mastered the art of yelling as she was dragged away and was known to enjoy the process, ticking off her arrests with pride.

I was not so keen. As my particular battlefield, I chose a big one, getting arrested at the Sixth International Conference on AIDS in June, 1990. It was the women-only day, and I sat down with several hundred others at the intersection of Sixth and Market streets, thereby “blocking a public thoroughfare”, as the charge sheet described it. My friend L. was meant to stay on the side-lines and hold my glasses, but when I arrived at the jail with scores of other detainees, a police officer drew my attention to someone waving to me from an adjoining paddock, my spectacles in her hand. L. told me later she could not refrain from joining in when she saw us being arrested. My glasses were unharmed, and I was grateful to see clearly once more. During our stay in jail, we held an activist fashion show, women parading down an imaginary catwalk, hands still cuffed behind their backs. Availablism in action.

True to form, San Francisco has been marking the anniversary in fine style, with events at old haunts such as The Women's Building and Cafe Flore. I wish I'd known well in advance. But, I like to think I have joined in the reunion in spirit, if not in person.

Two days after that demo was my first Pride march, which I attended in my Women ACT UP t-shirt, protest turning to celebration, as various marches flowed into one another and we experienced the mix of emotions that comes with the cycle of life and death.

Frida

I made the briefest of visits to this exhibit at the Michael Hoppen Gallery in West London. I arrived with great expectations and left rather bemused at the minimalism of the presentation. The text on the gallery's website is far more revealing than anything in the gallery: no brochure, no captions, no supporting materials were to be seen for Ishiuchi Miyako's documentation of Frida Kahlo's personal belongings, long stored in a bathroom at the painter's home.

The photos could be similarly brushed aside, shorn of their context. But, if you do know anything of Kahlo's extraordinary life, the photos do reveal some stark realities, tenderly realised. The vivid dresses. The chic sunglasses. And the shoes. One image stuck with me, but I can find no reproduction of it: two shoes shot from behind. Bright red. And then one notices that one has a much higher heel, stacked, than the other. These were shoes that must have been custom-made for the artist, to compensate for one of her legs being shorter than the other. I stopped short and stared at this image, struck by its poignancy.

The other notable images include hammer and sickles that seem to have been hand-drawn on her corsets, often sewn into her dresses. To me, these speak of a defiance and a sense of humour: often confined to her bed, Kahlo made her mark on her immediate surroundings and dressed for the stage beyond them. Even her clothes were a canvas.

Taking Flight

A Murmuration; photo: Val Phoenix

Having attended the last day of the Brighton Festival yesterday, I left feeling very tired after a day's walking round but rather charmed by the limited offerings I attended. In truth, it was as much about a day out from London for me, but I still managed to tap into the festival theme of taking flight. Guest-curated by author Ali Smith, the festival wanted visitors to imagine themselves as birds in migration. The bird theme certainly resonated in the exhibits I visited, most notably in A Murmuration, a series of installations at ONCA Gallery. On the ground floor, visitors tucked themselves into a hide and watched videos discussing Second World War surveillance of seabirds. Moving downstairs to the basement, I found myself in an extraordinary crypt- or bunker-like structure arranged with sound recordings. Quite atmospheric. One could also check out artists' archives of notes and slides in an upstairs area.

Across the road was the Agnes Varda installation, Beaches Beaches, which certainly tied in with Brighton's seaside location, if not so much with the avian theme. Varda's array of brightly coloured plastic objects stuck to the wall created a rather camp feel, not so much in keeping with her very serious film footage. The hut in which this played was so crammed with visitors, I couldn't get in, but found myself peeping through a gap in the curtain. Photos adorned the walls, though I was not so sure of the connection of the different elements.

Around the corner in Circus Street was the highpoint of my visit, the multimedia immersive installation, Gauge. Themed around water rather than birds, it was fun, atmospheric and rather thrilling, as I picked my way around a dilapidated indoor market dotted with curious contraptions and enthusiastic visitors--a playground for all ages, I thought. Each gadget was hooked up to microphones, so that visitors' engagements were played out through the speakers, creating an ever-changing soundscape. I got my hands dirty in some mud, just so that I could faintly make out the swishing sounds of the water. A cascade of water suddenly dropped onto a piano, startling everyone in the vicinity. Finding no keyboard on the piano, I plucked on the strings, and was joined by a little boy who tried his hand at making some sounds, as well. An impromptu duet. Steam issued from a small pool and people tried running round it in unison to make a tornado. I wanted to move in there, but left to wander along the beach and enjoy some quiet time before making my way home in the evening, sadly missing out on the enticingly-titled Fleeting, a performance on the beach involving lights and birds.

The Falling

Just out in the UK is Carol Morley's swooning girls drama, The Falling, which I referred to previously.

Here is an interview she did with Radcliffe and Maconie discussing the film. For some reason it won't embed.

But, I have been able to embed some of Tracey Thorn's music for the film.

Flare: Mood Swings

Broken Gardenias

Today's report concentrates on two films that combine comedy and drama, making for uneasy viewing.

In the Australian comic drama (?) Zoe. Misplaced, Zoe is attracted to her housemate Coal's ex, Nat, who reciprocates her feelings. And then Coal finds out.... What starts off as an amusing L Word episode progresses onto darker and darker territory, until it turns into a bit of a psychology lesson. I puzzled over the abrupt shifts in tone, wondering whether they worked or not. Then I pondered the characters' motivations and questioned whether I had missed some key hints. So, I guess it's a pretty effective piece of work, if duplicitous.

Broken Gardenias, an American road movie, looks great, with sweeping vistas of California, as its two loners, hunky butch Sam and forlorn Jenni, go to L.A., in search of the latter's father. A film that includes a suicide attempt early on that is played as one of a number of comic setbacks has an interesting notion of comedy. And I never quite warmed to it, despite Sam and Jenni's quirky budding friendship. It reminded me a little of By Hook Or By Crook, with Jenni's very mannered fragility setting my teeth on edge. Plus, the running joke of her ex-housemates shadowing the duo through L.A., arguing all the way, felt forced and gratuitous. Jenni is played by the film's screenwriter, so she must have felt highly invested in the story.


I believe both films were crowd-sourced, explaining their rough and ready feel, but getting the tone right is something that can really make or break a film, regardless of budget.

Flare: Marginal Communities

We Came to Sweat

Today's retrospective Flare viewing includes two shorts by Silas Howard and a documentary on the now-departed Starlite Lounge in Brooklyn.

Howard's two films focus on Bambi Lake, one-time Cockette and unlikely punk spoken word artist, whose song "The Golden Age of Hustlers" provides a narrative device linking the two, to explain her life, from her days as a hustler on Polk Street to today, when she admits she's not especially happy, as she sits glammed up outside a cafe. While I was not so taken with the recreation of the song with Justin Vivian Bond singing, I did find the short documentary, Sticks and Stones, fascinating and would like to know much, much more about this pioneering performer.

The Starlite Lounge was that rare thing: a black-owned bar providing a non-discriminatory space in pre-Stonewall New York. Kate Kunath's documentary, We Came to Sweat, picks up the story in 2010 as the bar is threatened with closure, a victim of the gentrification of its corner of Brooklyn. I would have liked to see more on the neighbourhood and the changes befalling it, but Kunath sticks close to the bar itself, which rather limits the scope of the story. I found the film overlong and repetitious, once the basic facts were established: the bar was established in 1962 and provided a safe space for its patrons. This point is repeated so often it becomes tedious. In the end, commerce wins out and the bar loses its leases and never reopens. What happens to the community is not pursued.

Flare: Sultry Summer Days

Atlantida

Teenaged girls. Rural towns. Unrelenting summer heat. What could possibly go wrong? Well, two films show what happens when girls looking for something to happen find what they're looking for.

The Argentine drama Atlantida is languid, understated and, well, a bit tedious. Swotty Lucia is left in charge of her younger sister Elena, who's broken her leg. Save for the occasional dawn swim, Lucia has not very much to look forward to, as she studies for her exams, hoping to move to Buenos Aires for uni. As the film unfolds over one extremely long day, Lucia finds herself attracted to Ana, a friend of her sister's, while Elena tags along with the family doctor. A storm is imminent, the signs are set..... but not much actually happens. Such a disappointment.

The Dutch drama Summer sets its stall out early, in another rural household, as Ms. Silent, later revealed to be actually called Anne, narrates the summer her life changed. This quirky and very stylish film captured my attention much more fully than did Atlantida, as Anne matter-of-factly describes the wife-beaters, rapists and child thugs who populate her town, all existing under the beady eye of the town business, the nuclear power plant that seems to have a hold, a force field, over everyone. When Lena, a mixed race biker, arrives in town, her presence seems to disturb the torpor in which everyone lives, including Anne. While the plot may lack orginality, the execution is spot on, and the soundtrack, of jauntily retro tunes, provides a kind of psychedelic haze through which the narrative unfolds. I actually have no idea in what decade the film is meant to be set. It could be anywhere from the 1960s-onward. Very impressive work from writer Marjolein Bierens and director Colette Bothof.

Flare: True Romance

Girltrash: All Night Long

Although the festival ended on Sunday, I shall continue reviewing films from Flare, courtesy of its new online preview service. Today's subject: romance.

Portrait of a Serial Monogamist is a Canadian comedy offering Elsie, a lead character whose first action is to dump her long-term partner, Robyn, and exit the premises, claiming it was for the woman's own good. I immediately didn't like her and her subsequent behaviour did nothing to endear her to me. A problem when the character seems to be the one the audience is meant to identify with. In fact, of the five or six characters who had most screen time, none was particularly engaging. I did rather like the bi-curious character Elsie tried to to seduce but then drove away. Quite frankly, by the end of the film I really didn't care whether Elsie and Robyn got back together or not, they were so cloying and annoying. The bi-curious woman had a lucky escape.

Girltrash: All Night Long is a musical set in Los Angeles featuring a band. A very promising start and I enjoyed its cheesiness immensely. Particularly good is Michelle Lombardo as the heartbreaking bassist everyone wants to bed. The character names are ridiculous: Colby, Tyler and Misty sound as if they are '80s soap opera characters. But, the film revels in its own ridiculousness and I found it entertaining, if a bit light-weight. Any film that sets its big shoot 'em up in a sorority house has something going for it.

Flare: Of Girls and Horses

Of Girls and Horses

As I said, I have seen few films at the festival, but I am quite glad I saw this one on the big screen, because it is a visual delight and deserves to have its sweeping shots seen in their full glory. An unexpectedly sweet film from the formidable Monika Treut, Of Girls and Horses is a coming of age tale involving two girls on a horse farm in northern Germany. While that may not scream must-see, it turned out to be both visually and emotionally engaging.

My companions and I talked over the film afterward, admitting we had expected disaster to strike, given the set-up of troubled Alex arriving in the middle of nowhere, attempting to kiss her supervisor Nina and then stealing Nina's pills. But, these transgressions did not end in disaster or melodrama, merely serving as bumps in the road of Alex's growing up. When posh girl Kathy arrives with her horse Carmina, again one might anticipate jealous Alex to take some kind of revenge on the girl or her horse, but she merely befriends both.

"There's no conflict," said B, and we agreed our expectations were not met, but in a good and surprising way. Intererestingly, in the accompanying notes, a reviewer notes that "the conflict of Of Girls and Horses is purely emotional". I might have reworded that as "the conflict is internal". It's not a drama played out between people, so much as what is happening in Alex, Kathy and also Nina, who is torn between her spiritually enriching life on the farm and her girlfriend in the metropolis of Hamburg.

And the horses look amazing. Such impressive creatures, rendered as curious but mute characters by Treut and her DOP. Whether turning to regard the camera with suspicion or galloping across the shore, the horses in the film command respect and affection. Not so different from human beings then.

Flare: Where Are the Lesbians?

Yesterday I saw no films at Flare, but did engage in stimulating discourse, courtesy of a panel, a networking lunch and extended social time.

The panel was the provocatively titled Where Are the Lesbians?, bringing together programmers, filmmakers and journalists. I took copious notes, but what emerged were several strands of debate, namely: why are there so few lesbian characters on mainstream TV; who authors these characters; why is it so difficult to get funding for films with lesbian characters. Not much was decided, though much frustration was expressed, and I was left feeling rather deflated by the prevailing gloom. There was a view expressed that things were better in the old days, when Channel 4 used to commission LGBT programming. And I do well recall seeing a lot of UK films in the early 1990s make their way across the pond, to be eagerly set upon by queer audiences in San Francisco. We were amazed a television station had funded them. That situation no longer exists, but was there ever a golden age of lesbian programming, really? It may be misplaced nostalgia. Are programmers more conservative now, asking lesbian filmmakers to tone down the queerness of their female characters? Or is it that the whole system has always been heteronormative and patriarchal? I smiled wryly when a young filmmaker who had self-funded her feature expressed the optimistic view that things will get better in years to come. Will they?

After the panel, I chatted to a few attendees, including Lisa Gornick, who had raised the vexed question of capitalism ever so briefly in the panel. In her experience, filmmakers see few financial returns, even if their work is distributed. She asked the question, not addressed in the panel: what is a lesbian film? Something made by a lesbian or something with lesbians in it? So many questions to consider. The only concrete plan that emerged is that Diva magazine has arranged a meeting with the BBC to ask why they keep killing off their lesbian characters. Other plans to increase distribution opportunities for queer films, via a UK festival network, may also be in the offing.

Then it was on to the extended social time, which culminated in a giant long table of dykes eating, drinking and chatting, with a bit of film talk thrown in. From small beginnings do revolutions grow.

Flare: Community Entanglements

Dressed As a Girl

I have spent the past few days alternating between watching films online and visiting the festival on-site, making for a strange parallel universe effect.

As it happened, I was watching Colin Rothbart's Dressed As a Girl online as it premiered at the festival on Sunday. I do wish I could have been there to see the participants in-person. Given what I watched onscreen, they have wonderfully complex and tangled lives. Starting as a recap of Jonny Woo's Gay Bingo club and East London's drag scene, the film tracks the lives of several associates of Woo, and he offers some arch commentary from his position as arch provocateur and master of ceremonies. In truth, I found Woo's narrative arc less interesting than the others, as he played up his drug and booze antics early on and then became clean and sober by the end of the film. His co-stars Pia and Amber proved more compelling to me, both quite vulnerable in their own ways, with the former wandering off in a haze of conspiracy theories and the latter attempting to transition to female while also reaching out to her biological family. Her encounters with her Dad were painfully awkward, as he attempted to be supportive while also tripping up on the correct pronouns to use. I imagine it was the type of documentary of most interest to those who already know the scene under examination.

As a companion piece, Ben Walters offered up the latest instalment of Burn, his "platform" for alternative performance and moving image. I still don't get how this platform works, but he showed nine short films made by some of the same people seen in Dressed As a Girl, plus a documentary on the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, site of its own alternative scene in south London. Standout shorts included Woo's vision of multiple Margaret Thatchers lip-synching to "Hold On", plus Figs in Wigs' hilarious food-and-names electro music video. Tim Brunsden's Save the Tavern proved to be an oddly restricted look at the glorious queer history of the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, as it seemed to be entirely Duckie-centred, with no mention of any of the other clubs that currently call the RVT home. Where it was quite good was in giving some of the backstory to the current situation of the club and its place in queer history, offering some great archive footage of Adrella and Lily Savage, as well as explaining how the club offered a gathering place for a community under siege during the AIDS crisis.

Where I often come unstuck in situations like this is in hearing the testimonies of people who say they found a home at such places. "It's so welcoming and friendly," they say, and I wonder to whom? I saw next to no people of colour in any of these films, for example. And for every boozer that people call home there are those who don't feel welcome. What if you don't drink? I am all for saving the RVT, but I do wonder whether the community has moved on from always assigning the highest status to a place that is focused on consuming alcohol. As one commentator says in Save the Tavern, they only got the cabaret in to sell more drinks, after all.

And speaking of precarious forms of community, last night I finally saw Girlhood, Celine Sciamma's third feature, still exploring the lives of girls, but this time focused on black girls living on the edge of Paris. What. An. Amazing. Film. It went on a bit too long and had a few false endings, but I was gripped and full of concern as downtrodden Merieme transforms herself into fierce girl gang member Vic, before falling in with a drugs operation and then having to decide what her path in life really is. It was easy to see how she could make so many "mistakes", given her circumstances, from her abusive brother lording it over her at home, to her tentative relationship with sensitive Ismael having to be a secret. The girls who took her up built up her self-esteem but at the cost of having to commit acts of brutality against other girls. And I think this is the film's strength: it makes a case for female solidarity by showing how often girls end up fighting each other rather than the dominant males who oppress them. If I see anything better than Girlhood at the festival, I shall be very pleased indeed.

Flare: On the Market

This year I am making an effort to attend more events at Flare, which has resulted in me being slightly more sociable than normal. Yesterday's visit, for example, resulted in only one film being viewed, The Falling, which I am not reviewing now, as it has a release date of 24 April. I will, however, write about the event of the film screening.

But, before I went to the film screening, I attended two other events and ran into quite a few familiar faces. It has taken 20 years of London living to experience what everyone seems to say should be true: seeing familiar faces at specific events. Well, it finally happened. Most odd.

Early in the day I visited the Market Place Live, Film London's get-a-film-released-in-90-minutes challenge. There was no actual film production, but rather a panel of industry folk ready to use their experiences to advise on getting a fake film onto screens. So, we had Parkville Pictures producer Cecilia sweating it out, trying to get the BFI and various funders interested in the film Treat Me Like a Lady, a curious beast of trans rom-com and spy caper. I learned quite a bit of industry jargon, from m.g. to P&A, though I never did quite twig what Cecilia meant when she kept saying she had done the whole thing without a "com title" (phon). A bit of demystification would have been helpful to those of us not in the know. Later, I attended a delegates reception and got a bit of info on the terms from financier Laure, who had also been on the panel. I also spoke briefly to Desiree Akhavan, director of Appropriate Behavior, who seems to have dropped anchor in London, at least for a bit.

The evening was capped off by a screening of The Falling and a rather rushed Q&A with director Carol Morley, a shame as the film raises many questions. Not that I had anything on the tip of my tongue, but if I had, it certainly would not have been, "What do you think of the male characters?", a rather loaded enquiry made by, yes, a male audience member. I groaned inwardly. It's interesting men never seem to make these enquiries of films that feature a male-dominated cast, which is to say most films. The Falling is set in a girls' school and, unsurprisingly, most of the cast are female. Missing the point, I would say. Morley was gracious enough about the question and encouraged audience members to start a conversation online, even if they hated the film, which provoked great laughter, as did BFI host Tricia Tuttle's comic swoon, in sympathy with the mass psychogenic illness that the film depicts.

And on that note, I shall leave off for now.

BFI Flare Preview

Tonight marks the return of BFI Flare LGBT Film Festival in London, running through the 29th of March. I am especially looking forward to Carol Morley's The Falling and Monika Treut's Of Girls and Horses, as well as attempting to do some networking at the many events scheduled throughout the festival.

As well as new films, it's a chance to check out old favourites such as Orlando and The Color Purple to see how they stand up.

While I have yet to see much in preview, there are five short films online for a global audience to enjoy, courtesy of the fiveFilms4freedom project to promote LGBT rights across the world. The aim is for people to watch the films together on 25 March. I am not sure how the films were chosen, but all are worth a look. If only I could figure out how to shave the bicycle into my scalp, as seen in True Wheel.

Appropriate Behavior

I am intrigued to see the high-profile publicity Desiree Akhavan's film, Appropriate Behavior, is attracting, no doubt in part because of her attachment to the Girls juggernaut. But, I do hope discerning cinephiles will seek out Appropriate Behavior and enjoy Akhavan's oh-so-knowing and yet hopelessly inept Brooklynites as they grapple with relationships gone awry and being closeted to their families.

Appropriate Behavior

The heroine, Shirin, is a bisexual Persian-American 20-something reeling from the breakup with her girlfriend Maxine, bits of their story told in flashbacks punctuating the narrative. This time-skipping, as I discovered in a recent chat with Akhavan, was suggested by the film's producer, Cecilia Frugiuele, whose company Parkville Pictures financed the project. The trope slightly fractures the narrative, but doesn't detract from Akhavan's sharp ear for dialogue and range of intriguing characters, most notably a couple who hook up with Shirin in the most excruciatingly tense threesome I have seen committed to film.

If the ending is a bit vague and abrupt, the preceding 90 minutes speed by in a blur of deadpan one-liners and a bit of character development that belies the film's millennial glibness. Plus, the moody score is by Josephine Wiggs, who I am glad to say is continuing to make music after seeming to drop off the earth for a decade or so. Apparently, she is now touring with The Breeders again.

It is great to see such a mix of talents involved in independent film. UK filmgoers can see Appropriate Behavior on general release now and it will also feature in the upcoming Flare programme. More on that in due course.

Lesbian Lives conference

seagulls; photo by Val Phoenix

I spent a well-earned day out in sunny Brighton yesterday checking out the second day of the Lesbian Lives conference. Somehow this conference had never come to my attention before, but since I have become somewhat immersed in academia, I hear much more about such things, though this is the first gathering I have attended outside of London.

Coming to the conference on the second day meant I missed a few discussions that had clearly started the day before, or even further back. I was curious to see if there would be any points of disagreement or tension, as the build-up to the conference saw some high-profile debates over freedom of speech and inclusion of trans women at queer and feminist events. None of this was apparent at the conference, as the day passed quite uneventfully. A far cry from my last lesbian conference in 1991, when disagreements were played out on-stage and in the corridors, voices raised and positions hardened.

Aside from two keynotes, I attended two panel discussions, one on archives and the other on French feminism. It has recently come to my attention that I am woefully ignorant of the French philosophical strand of feminism represented by such thinkers as Irigaray, Kristeva, Cixous and so forth. The panel I attended attempted to make connections between the writings of Monique Wittig and English-language writers, making it a bit less daunting for me. I was very pleased to hear one of the panellists making comparisons between Wittig's writing and that of Virgina Woolf's Orlando, which I have read. The funny thing is I took a class with Wittig back in 1989 when she was a visiting lecturer at my college. But, I cannot remember a thing about what she taught, just that I had one very intimidating tutorial with her, and she fixed me with a rather disdainful gaze as I attempted to ask a timidly framed question. Not a woman to be trifled with. It seems her reputation as a visionary thinker is being redeemed by the current crop of queer theorists.

The other panel was about making use of the past, which has direct relevance to my research, as I prepare to move on to the next phase and decide how and why I shall make use of institutional archives. One speaker made a distinction between how the words lesbian and queer are received in non-Western cultures, which I found interesting, as both are Western terms. Apparently, lesbian is seen as having activist associations whereas queer is not, much to my bemusement: in my experience both have activist associations. Anyway, it's interesting to hear these points when one attends conferences. I have yet to get an explanation as to why identity politics is seen as outdated, however.

Once the conference disbanded just before 5pm I took advantage of the gap before my train left to hightail it to the seaside where I drank in the sea air, watched a glorious sunset and dodged a violent hailstorm before heading back to chilly London.

Pride

Just got back from viewing of the film Pride at the unlikely venue of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, screened as part of their LGBT History Month programme. Of course, I am a good five months late seeing the film, but thought I would share my thoughts anyway.

Pride (UK 2014)

It's a tearjerker, historically inaccurate in places and underwrites the women characters, with barely a named lesbian in the mix. But, what really stuck with me was the use of the word "solidarity". I had thoughts on this word dropping out of the social vocabulary, as I was writing my dissertation recently, but left this idea out of the finished work. Certain words seem to belong to certain decades and "solidarity" seems to scream '80s-'90s to me. I well remember using it, feeling it, living it, but not recently.

Hmm, I ponder to myself. Was queer/AIDS activism the last gasp of the solidarity movement? In Pride the solidarity is meant to be between the LG (as it was in those days) community and the striking miners in South Wales in 1984. But, the community itself is not in agreement. The men talk over the women and mock their expressed desire for a women's group. And most gay men they meet in clubs are not at all interested in supporting a demographic they perceive as macho and homophobic. Solidarity is hard-won, if at all. Despite the film's feel-good ending, the miners lost and Section 28 was adopted within three years of the film's final scene.

One of the characters, Jonathan, is based on Jonathan Blake, who spoke after the screening. Now 65 and a long-term survivor of AIDS, he clearly has a history of activism, and many in the audience were keen to hear his thoughts on the changing face and focus of LGBT activism, with concerns raised about privatisation and commercialisation of events like Pride (the event, not the film), as well as HIV care. For my part, I was keen to hear more about the community the film depicts as being centred around the Gay's the Word bookshop. Sadly, this part was fictionalised: Blake says he lived in a squat in Brixton and most meetings were held in gay pubs, such as The Bell. I hold out hope that somewhere there is a solidarity movement brewing in a queer bookshop.

Misnomers

How terribly excited was I a few hours ago when I took some time out for a laze and a listen to 6Music and discovered they were playing Riot Grrrl selections? And how annoyed and frustrated was I two hours later when Riot Grrrl turned out to be "Riot Grrrlz", some strange all-encompassing term for any woman who might have been in a band in the 1990s? Plus, forebears and current young 'uns.

I wouldn't mind, if only the presenter had made it clear that bands like L7 and Babes in Toyland were not actual Riot Grrrls, but were around at the same time as bands like Bikini Kill and had, in fact, formed before them. But, No. I gritted my teeth, frustrated at the lazy misnaming and associations.

It was great to hear airplay for punk and post-punk artists like The Slits and X-ray Spex who were certainly inspirations for Riot Grrrl. But, it fell apart with the last track--Hole. Courtney Love hated Riot Grrrl so much, she did a joke RG track called "Olympia". And she tried to burn Kathleen Hanna with a cigarette! How ahistorical can you get? Grrrrr!

Chris Stein/Negative

I thought I was too late with this, as Chris Stein/Negative: Me, Blondie, and The Advent of Punk was meant to close today, but this exhibit of photos by Stein has been extended to 8 February. Very good news for lovers of punk/New Wave and New York's indigenous contribution, the very grotty No Wave.

Best known as guitarist for Blondie, Stein has a fine eye and a long-standing practice as a documentary photographer working in black and white. As one might expect for one so engrained in the New York music scene, Stein's work provides an entree to the CBGBs crowd and their cohort, including a lovely portrait of Basquiat. But, he also captures some of the West Coast contingent, with many shots of a very young Joan Jett, including her lounging in her "notorious Los Angeles apartment", handcuffs and other accoutrements dangling above her head. "Wahey!" I noted to my friend B., a punk veteran who had seen pretty much everyone in the bygone era and was thrown into many a reverie, including one recollection of time spent at Jones Beach under some influence, ahem.

My eye was taken by a shot of a handsome blond head spied from across the room. "Oh, Billy Idol!" I thought. But, no. On close inspection, it was none other than The Avengers' Penelope Houston, looking more androgynous than usual. Sadly, the caption identified her band as hailing from Los Angeles, rather than San Francisco, which led to much tsking on my part.

In addition to the star names, there are many shots of long-gone and not so well-remembered figures, many dead from HIV or drug abuse, which illustrates the other side of 1970s New York. While many rhapsodise over its magnetic and creative qualities, I well remember the city as being pretty seedy and grim in many ways. One shot shows Debbie Harry reclining on a car. The caption notes the hood (bonnet) is sealed with a lock to prevent battery theft. Yes, really.

Debbie Harry by Chris Stein

I hadn't mentioned Harry up to now, but she is the undisputed star of the show. Not surprising, as she and Stein lived and worked together back in the day. And he obviously found many opportunities to work her into photos. And, let's be honest, who wouldn't? There's Debbie standing by a window, backlit like a Bond girl. Debbie on a train somewhere on tour, looking amazing in a beret. "A classic look", observed Bev. And she's on quite a few postcards, too. "Picture This", indeed.

What might have been....

As I've been resting up after finishing my long-in-the-works dissertation, I have rediscovered the joys of reading and watching films for pleasure. Perusing the selection at Hackney Library before Christmas, I took a few punts on some DVDs, including Sunshine Cleaning (2008), purely on the strength of the credits: two female leads, female director and female writer. Hurrah! Having viewed the film last night, I found myself annoyed at the ending and the disappearance of one plot strand without resolution.

I was so annoyed, I took to the Internet today to see if anyone else had noticed this lapse and to see if any key scenes had been deleted. The Internet did not let me down. SPOILER ALERT.

Lynn and Norah in the lift in Sunshine Cleaning

The plot strand I noted features Norah (Emily Blunt) and the woman she pursues, Lynn (Mary Lynn Rajskub), seemingly to return her childhood photos, having found them at the house of her deceased mother. What starts as a quest for Norah to get to grips with her own dead mother turns into a bit of a stalking, with Norah repeatedly seeking Lynn out, even inviting her to a party, where the woman nuzzles her neck! I sat bolt upright at this point: could this be an unexpected lesbian sub-plot? Suddenly Lynn's stroking of Norah's arm in the lift when they met made more sense. But, what was Norah's motivation? The film is quite unclear on this, and after revealing quite a bit of her family history during a "trestling" expedition, the film moved back to the main plot involving Norah's sister, Rose (Amy Adams), and her struggles with her young son and affair with a married man. But, wait! I wanted to know more about Norah and Lynn! When Norah finally hands over the photos to Lynn, the latter explodes in disbelief and a sense of betrayal: "I thought you were interested in me!" and leaves in a huff. No doubt about it: Lynn thought they were dating, and so did I. But, the film says no more about this relationship.

I thought to myself: there must be more. Something must have happened when they went trestling. Sure enough, if you check Megan Holley's script, there are additional scenes fleshing out the relationship. As Holley wrote it, Norah falls off the trestle, they go back to her place, make out and then Lynn discovers the photos. And Norah doesn't just accept the rejection. She tries to make amends by visiting Lynn's work place. It makes so much more sense! I did not listen to the audio commentary by Holley and one of the producers, but apparently, she does mention deleted scenes, but, as they do not appear on the DVD, it is unclear who cut them or why. But, like Desperately Seeking Susan, one is left to wonder what might have been. I'd like to imagine that after some time apart, Norah returns to make up with Lynn and they go trestling together. But, this time nobody gets hurt.

Fringe! 2014: The unbearable lightness of being vulnerable

Art by Rachael House; photo: V. Phoenix

Wow.

I can barely recall what I said as I stood at the at the Rose Lipman Building on Saturday night. Lip trembling, eyes watering, I reached out my arms and mumbled, “You are the audience.” And the people in front of me cheered. It was a live moment, energy crackling, shared with a group who wanted to be there, who were open, expecting, expectant, waiting for something. And that thing was In Search of Margo-Go, Jill Reiter's unfinished vision of the underground queercore-Riot Grrrl scene from the 1990s, and the centre-piece of our There's a Dyke in the Pit strand at Fringe! queer arts festival.

Not nearly as expectant as I was. I had waited 20 years for the thing to appear on the screen behind me. To appear on the screen behind me. Because what I had waited for was to see myself appear on the screen behind me. I was waiting for myself and my community to be seen. My community of the present was expectant to see my community of the past. And so was I. And it made me highly emotional. When the images appeared, I watched them in much the way I would any other film—I was appreciative, I laughed at the funny parts, frowned at the setbacks, empathised with the characters. But every time I reflected on what it meant, I welled up. Because it was so much more than a disposable form of entertainment, to be watched, lapped up, consumed, and disgorged, like a sweet wrapper.

As (I think) I told that evening’s audience, when we worked on the film, none of was a trained filmmaker, except for the director and the main cinematographers. Everyone else was, in my words, “enthusiastic amateurs”. My words were unscripted. I can now reflect on that choice of words. Amateur—one who does it for the love of it. Not too shabby. I guess I meant what I said. That was my community, a diasporic queer community of people who had waited a long, long time. And so had I. We were together. I only wish I had thought to change that personal address of “you” to “we”. We are the audience. And the producers.

In Search of Margo-Go

The film’s 20-year journey was one of obstacles, from lack of money, to personal conflicts, to obsolescence, changing technologies, all against a backdrop of time passing and social conditions changing, from queer street activism to equal marriage, from analogue film to digital video and non-linear editing packages, and its eventual emergence in Hackney in 2014. In a final three-day push, Jill edited it on her laptop on a table, leaning on a film canister that someone had bought as a piece of home furnishing. Spooky. I reflected that the film’s journey from New York to San Francisco to London paralleled my own journey. Perhaps it was meant to be.

Standing up and speaking to a room of strangers, some of whom were not born when we made the film (and I use this we to mean the wider queer community, as my own participation in it was fleeting), was potentially an alienating experience, especially for Jill, who was making her first ever visit to London. We spoke later about it and she told me she was glad it premiered in London, and not her own patch. Less baggage. Lucy Thane, on the other hand, marvelled that a film she worked on in San Francisco and New York had its premiere in her neighbourhood of Hackney. For the three of us who were there, all lesbians born in 1966-67, we had three very different journeys that put us in one place for a brief time in 1994 and again in this time of 2014. Wiser heads than mine could analyse that and make something of it.

What was extremely gratifying was that I felt not in the least ashamed or embarrassed by my reaction. I am a shy person. I am not a publicly emotive person. I prefer to share my feelings in private. This was a public occasion and I felt emotion publicly and shared it. Afterwards, I thought: Well, that was unexpected but it was honest and it needed to come out. The dykes finally took over the pit.

As my Fringe! experience was so totally focused on our strand, I have little to report from the rest of the weekend. But, I did catch three art exhibits in the basement of the Lipman, including Victoria Sin and Leslie Borg's Domestic Kitchen, their ode to both Nigella Lawson and Martha Rosler, and quite wickedly amusing.

The Lorenz-Boudry team brought us No Future/No Past, their take on first wave punk with a range of queer art types "performing" versions of Poly Styrene and Darby Crash in a kind of self-referential staged conversation.

Our punk den in the cafe of the Lipman was adorned with work by Gwenael Rattke and Rachael House, which again brought first wave punk and second wave feminist activism into conversation, thrilling for me. I had assembled an installation of my archive photos, plus shots of some of my vinyl collection, soundtracked by old cassette mix tapes I'd made, therefore reworking analogue forms into digital out of necessity. I'd like to revisit this project when I have more time and a better editing system, as there is much more to be done with the material. I am now the proud owner of a Rachael House Smash Patriarchy wrist band.

Shorts panel; photo V. Phoenix 

In the afternoon we had a shorts programme and   panel of bright minds discussing Riot Grrrl's cultural legacy. I had a thought that did not get discussed: how underground movements briefly surface, are burned by mainstream exposure, and quickly submerge, existing through word of mouth for those who can find them. This is the history of subcultures.


And, lastly, I did get to one screening on Friday, a retrospective of Barrelstout (Bev Zalcock and Sara Chambers) shorts from the last 20 years.

Bev Zalcock; photo V. Phoenix

While I don't feel my films have been directly influenced by them, we do share a DIY aesthetic and love of punk, and Tara from Wotever DIY Film Festival said she saw a link. Fine with me. Many of those who appear in the films were on hand, making for an amusing experience as they spotted their friends on the screen. Can't wait for them to  finish their football film, for which I was interviewed two years ago. Carol Morley, friend and associate of the Barrelstout stable, conducted a Q&A after the screening, and they elaborated on their manifesto. If I may excerpt:

We value themes that include optimism, cooperation, friendship, solidarity, fun  and laughter. We could not live without cinema. 

 DIY forever!