“Before Stonewall” Screens Across City to Commemorate 50th Anniversary of the Riots
This month marks the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which occurred at the Stonewall Inn in downtown New York City on June 27 and 28, 1969. The 1984 documentary Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community, directed by RPJ client Greta Schiller and co-directed by Robert Rosenberg, chronicles the Gay Rights movement in America and explored the cultural perceptions of homosexuality leading up to the Riots. The film earned widespread critical acclaim at the time of its release and has since become one of the most integral historical documents about gay and lesbian rights in America during the pre-Stonewall period. (We note that RPJ Partner Heidi Reavis’s father, John W. Reavis, Jr., produced the first documentary about homosexuality to be broadcast on an American television network, titled The Rejected, in 1961.)
In honor of the 50th Anniversary of the Riots, the film has been newly restored and will be screened at several locations throughout the city this month, including Quad Cinema from June 21-24 and NYPL’s Hudson Park Library on June 24.
Learn more and purchase tickets to the screenings here.