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      Out of the Past

      1998 1 hr. 5 min. Documentary List
      Reviews 58% 500+ Ratings Audience Score In 1995, Salt Lake City high school student Kelli Peterson forms the Gay-Straight Alliance, an after-school extracurricular club for students who want to discuss homophobia, prompting vigorous opposition from local, state and national organizations. This documentary examines the controversy, juxtaposing it with the stories of five gay and lesbian people from America's past, from repressed 17th-century Puritan Michael Wigglesworth to black civil rights pioneer Bayard Rustin. Read More Read Less

      Audience Reviews

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      Audience Member Yes, it's dated. But it's very good documentary about the history of gay rights. It gets better as it goes on. I was surprised at how much I did NOT know about the struggles and historic timeline. Wow. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Audience Member i love this such a wanderful of movie story Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/22/23 Full Review Audience Member In Salt Lake City in 1995, gay high school student Kelli Peterson started a gay and straight club at her school. The story of her proceeding struggle with school administration and powers that be intermingles with brief narrative accounts of noteworthy historical figures whose sexuality has kept those of us in the present from learning from them, such as Michael Wigglesworth, a 17th-century Puritan minister, the 30-year love affair of 1800s novelist and short story writer Sarah Orne Jewett and woman of letters Annie Fields, Henry Gerber, who doesn't even have a page on Wikipedia, and his effort after WW I to found the short-lived Society for Human Rights, Quaker civil rights activist Bayard Rustin's role in the civil rights movement and as principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. He advised Martin Luther King on nonviolent resistance. Then we find Barbara Gittings's maverick crusade against the American Psychiatric Association's stance that homosexuality was an illness. Contained by the concise length of an hour, narrated by revered Hollywood stars like Edward Norton and Gwyneth Paltrow, shot on 16mm film and paced with calm serenity, Jeffrey Dupre and Michelle Ferrari's independent documentary converges upon a reconsideration of American history. To establish a status for ourselves in our day, we have to identify with someone in the past, as this film makes obvious. This somber, maddening and tremendously intelligent picture is a moving record of a momentous subject which, though it concerns gays, affects us all, and makes its statement in an intelligent and moving manner. The wonderful Barbara Giddings is actually featured in an enormously moving climactic moment in which she and Kelli Peterson meet, and it is cloudless that if only Kelli, and other students like her, had merely been taught about people like this woman at whom she's waving in school, she would never have contemplated suicide and never would have needed to form a Gay Straight Alliance. This film, about love, about the nature of humanity, and not to be confused with Jacques Tourneur's overrated film noir, is an first-rate tribute and monument to those who died having lived lives committed to the greater good seeing no sign of their own acceptance by the society for which they fought so passionately. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/19/23 Full Review Audience Member Also, consider seeing Brother Outsider, which focuses on Bayard Rustin. Excellent documentary. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Audience Member Great! As a lesbian and a history dork, this documentary was right up my alley! Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Audience Member gay history flim we do exist Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/27/23 Full Review Read all reviews Post a rating

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      Critics Reviews

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      Doris Toumarkine Film Journal International Ultimately uplifting and highly valuable as a document of struggle for gay acceptance. Jul 11, 2007 Full Review Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com Rated: 3/5 Oct 11, 2005 Full Review Filmcritic.com Rated: 3/5 Feb 14, 2001 Full Review Scott Renshaw rec.arts.movies.reviews Rated: 8/10 Jan 1, 2000 Full Review Read all reviews

      Movie Info

      Synopsis In 1995, Salt Lake City high school student Kelli Peterson forms the Gay-Straight Alliance, an after-school extracurricular club for students who want to discuss homophobia, prompting vigorous opposition from local, state and national organizations. This documentary examines the controversy, juxtaposing it with the stories of five gay and lesbian people from America's past, from repressed 17th-century Puritan Michael Wigglesworth to black civil rights pioneer Bayard Rustin.
      Director
      Jeff Dupre
      Executive Producer
      Andrew Tobias, Michael Huffington
      Screenwriter
      Michelle Ferrari
      Genre
      Documentary
      Original Language
      English
      Release Date (DVD)
      Apr 26, 2005