#308 - Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman on Documenting Decades of LGBTQ+ History

Published: Oct. 30, 2020, 6:19 p.m.

As part of their nationwide virtual retrospective, directors Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman joined FLC programmer Dan Sullivan for a career-spanning conversation. Watch their essential work, featuring new restorations, through November 5 in our Virtual Cinema at filmlinc.org/tellingpics For more than 30 years, Oscar-winning directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman have borne powerful witness to gay life, creativity, and activism — documenting lost aspects of LGBTQ+ history and chronicling unfolding events with humor, compassion, and fierce urgency. In their films, extraordinary interviews make the political personal and unforgettable. With Paragraph 175 and The Celluloid Closet, Epstein and Friedman examined the persecution of gay men in Nazi Germany and Hollywood’s history of hidden homophobia. Their documentaries The AIDS Show, Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, The Times of Harvey Milk, and Where Are We? have both chronicled and helped change history. Starting October 23, we look at their essential partnership and the endlessly empathetic, consciousness-building films it has yielded. Film at Lincoln Center Talks are presented by HBO.