LGBTQ+ Film Series

Film professor and St. Bart's parishioner Anthony Perrotto hosts a bimonthly film series February 2-May 3, with an introduction, important insights, and commentary for each screening, all with LGBTQ+ themes.

Please enter through the Community House: 109 East 50th Street, between Lexington and Park Avenues.

February 2: LONGTIME COMPANION 1990. Golden Globe & Sundance Winner is a landmark film. It gives insight into the AIDS Crisis of the 1980s & the scores of gay men affected by it. Bruce Davison, & Campbell Scott, give tender and heart-wrenching performances as friends living in this new world face this unknown “Gay Cancer.” Insightful and compassionate.

February 16: MAN IN THE ORANGE SHIRT 2017. BBC & Award for Drama with Vanessa Redgrave. Two love stories, sixty years apart, chart the changes and challenges in gay lives in England—from the era of WW2 to the present.  It is a “heart-rending” story. War brings Michael and Thomas together, when Michael is thwarted, love is the driving force; but Man in an Orange Shirt does a beautiful job of showing the consequences of repression for all these years.

March 1: BOY ERASED 2018. Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe, Lucas Hedges. The brutality of conversion therapy. The son of a Baptist pastor must overcome the shame after being outed as gay. His father and mother struggle to reconcile their love for their son with their beliefs. Fearing a loss of family, friends and community, Jared is pressured into attending a conversion therapy program. While there, Jared comes into conflict with its leader and begins his journey to finding his own voice and accepting his true self.

March 15: THE DANISH GIRL 2015 (31 wins & 79 nominations total). "God made me a woman, but the doctor corrected the mistake that nature made,” surely the most memorable line from Tom Hooper’s beautiful film, The Danish Girl. This film, set in the late 1920s, details the life of artist Einar Wegener, (subsequently Lili Elbe, played by Eddie Redmayne), who, with the aid of his long-suffering wife and fellow artist, Gerda, comes to terms with his desire to become a woman in an age of intolerance, and gambles all in agreeing to undergo one of the first ever sex-change operations.

April 5: MAMBO ITALIANO, 2003. Paul Sorvino stars. Roger Ebert and most critics compare this film to My Big Fat Greek Wedding & The Birdcage, and it is every bit as funny.  Angelo Barberini is the oddball son of Italian immigrants Gino & Maria. Angelo shocks his parents by moving out on his own without getting married, and, shocks them further when he reveals he is gay. But his boyfriend policeman, Nino Paventi, isn't as ready to come out of the closet – especially not to his busybody Sicilian mother. This movie would resonate just as well in any cultural setting because the underlying dynamics are similar. One of the best gay-themed comedies you’ll ever see.

April 19: WOMEN IN LOVE, 1969. Directed by Ken Russell. Starring Alan Bates, Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson, based on D.H. Lawrence's 1920 novel. Close friends Rupert Birkin and Gerald Crich begin romances with siblings Ursula and Gudrun. After the couples wed, they take a joint honeymoon to Switzerland,--but the trip gets increasingly complicated.  Rupert & Ursula are determined to stay faithful. But aloof Gerald & eccentric Gudrun turn to infidelity & sexual exploration. The naked Fireside wrestling between Reed and Bates is an unforgettable film classic.

May 3: AMERICAN BEAUTY, 1999. Directed by Sam Mendes. Kevin Spacey plays Lester Burnham, a middle-aged married man who has lost some hope in life. He has a job that is degrading. Annette Bening, his wife who refuses to show any type of loving emotion towards him, a daughter who practically hates herself, and is judged constantly as a loser. HOMOSEXUAL THEME must be acknowledged. It is there throughout the film and a closeted military neighbor. Executes our main character out of his own self hatred. Watch American Beauty and give yourself some time afterwards to think it over. It does exactly what movies are meant to do - give us a window into ourselves, this masterpiece does that better than any other film has ever done.