Kate Davis & David Heilbroner "Stonewall Uprising"
Kate Davis and David Heilbroner came Center Stage with Mark Gordon to talk about their documentary "Stonewall Uprising."
STONEWALL UPRISING recounts the dramatic event that launched a movement whose impact has deeply affected the course of the human rights struggle. Told by those who took part-from drag queens and street hustlers to police detectives, journalists, and a former mayor of New York-and featuring a rich trove of archival footage, the film revisits a time when homosexual acts were illegal throughout America, and homosexuality itself was seen as a form of mental illness. Hunted and often entrapped by undercover police in their hometowns, gays from around the U.S. began fleeing to New York in search of a sanctuary. Hounded there still by an aggressive police force, they found a semblance of normalcy in a Mafia-run gay bar in Greenwich Village, the Stonewall Inn. When police raided Stonewall on June 28, 1969, gay men and women did something they hadn't done before: they fought back. As the streets of New York erupted into violent protests and street demonstrations, the collective anger announced that the gay rights movement had arrived.
A treasure-trove of archival footage gives life to this all-too-recent reality, a time when Mike Wallace announced on a 1966 CBS Reports: "The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. He is not interested in, nor capable of, a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage." At the height of this oppression, the cops raid Stonewall, triggering nights of pandemonium with tear gas, billy clubs and a small army of tactical police. The rest is history.
Kate Davis and David Heilbroner have been producing award-winning documentaries for 15 years. They co-directed STONEWALL UPRISING, the first non-fiction film to tell the story of the Stonewall riots by the participants. Their film, Scopes: The Battle Over America's Soul (History Channel, 2006), was part of Ten Days Which Unexpectedly Changed America, which won the Emmy® for Best Non Fiction Series in 2006. Jockey (HBO, 2004), was nominated for 3 Emmys® and won the Emmy® Award for Best Non-Fiction Directing. Pucker Up: The Fine Art of Whistling (2004), was broadcast worldwide and had a limited US theatrical release. They also produced Diagnosis Bipolar (2010) and Plastic Disasters (2006) for HBO, and numerous social justice films including Anti-Gay Hate Crimes (A&E Networks, 1998) and Transgender Revolution (A&E Networks, 1999)
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