News

Divine Intervention: Schwarz Resurrects a Trailblazer for Loving Tribute

As gay culture becomes more normalized and commodified into the fabric of the mainstream zeitgeist, the importance of remembering the career of the talented Divine seems paramount. Documentarian Jeffrey Schwarz manages to evoke the larger than life star with a comprehensive and lovingly made homage with I Am Divine, an effort to explore his life through a variety of interviews and archival footage. For those familiar with his output, there’s certainly nothing revelatory to be experienced here, and while it serves as a wonderful preface to Divine’s notable body of work, it’s equally enjoyable to revisit the infamous, intriguing, and incomparable career of a star whose life ended much too soon.

Born Harris Glenn Milstead in 1945 Baltimore, Schwarz delves into Divine’s somewhat troubled youth and adolescence via extensive interviews with Divine’s mother and a female high school sweetheart.

Directed by: Jeffrey Schwarz

Featuring: Divine, John Waters, Ricki Lake, Mink Stole, Holly Woodlawn, Tab Hunter

When I was very little, I remember my mom watching the original Hairspray on VHS and I was fascinated by one particular character. She was just so loud and over-the-top, and at the end of the film she's so much larger than life. It was several years later before I discovered that the sequined, brash woman wasn't a biological woman at all, and that was my introduction to Harris Glenn "Divine" Milstead (and consequently, I've been infatuated with drag culture for as long as I can remember). So when I heard about the upcoming documentary I Am Divine, touting itself as the definitive biopic of the ultimate diva, I knew that it was a must-see on my SXSW 2013 list.

The documentary, directed by Jeff Schwarz (who also made the fantastic William Castle doc Spine Tingler!

In his powerful documentary "We Were Here," filmmaker David Weissman ("The Cockettes") chronicles the arrival of AIDS in San Francisco and its subsequent aftermath through the eyes of five individuals who were witnesses to history. It world premiered at Sundance earlier this year (where Iw's Peter Knegt proclaimed it to be "one of the standout films at the festival") and hits VOD this Friday, Dec. 9. It's our pick of the week. Weissman caught up with Indiewire to discuss his personal connection to the documentary and the impact it's had on the San Francisco community and abroad. So you moved to San Francisco in 1976. What were your first impressions of the city? I was in Venice Beach in the mid ‘70s, which was a wonderful place to be in those years, but it was changing. I hadn’t entirely found my circle. In San Francisco, I realized when I got there...

★★★★☆ Directors David Weissman and Bill Weber (The Cockettes [2002]) return to screens this week with the powerful and moving AIDS focused documentary We Were Here (2011), set during the 1970s and 80s in the liberal Us city of San Francisco. Drawing on intimate interviews from people who moved to San Francisco in the early 70s, we are introduced to those who first came face-to-face with what would become one of the most terrifying pandemics of the 20th century.

Read more »...

David Weissman moved to San Francisco in 1976 and has been a fixture of the filmmaking community there, working on films like Crumb and In the Shadow of the Stars before directing his own movie (with Bill Weber), The Cockettes, a documentary chronicle of the legendary Bay Area performance group. With his latest, We Were Here, Weissman again digs into the history of the city, this time capturing the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. The following short conversation was conducted at Sundance before the first screening of his film.

We Were Here opens in New York at the Angelika Film Center on Friday, September 9, and in Los Angeles on September 16 at the Arclight Hollywood.

Filmmaker: Tell me about the film.

Weissman: Well, the movie is We Were Here, a documentary about the human and community experience of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. It’s the first film...

Red Flag Releasing, a global distribution upstart helmed by Paul Federbush, Laura Kim, both former Warner Independent Picture executives, and Ron Stein, a financier and producer on The Kids Are All Right, have picked up We Were Here for their second theatrical release after last year’s 8: The Mormon Proposition. An official Sundance selection this year, We Were Here takes a somber, but hopeful look back at the AIDS epidemic that broke out within the homosexual community in San Francisco during the 1980s by following the remembrances of five people who lived through it. The film will grace Us theaters this September. Gist: In the early 1980s, AIDS was known as the “Gay Plague” when hundreds of homosexual people started dying of a then unknown immune deficiency disease. Thanks to San Francisco's unique progressive gay community, its heart found in the Castro Street neighborhood, helped the majority of the...

Sundance Film Festival audiences praised the documentary We Were Here, a powerful look back at San Francisco in the ‘80s and the devastating impact of the AIDS epidemic, and their enthusiasm led to the film’s recent acquisition by Red Flag Releasing. Co-director David Weissman and co-director and editor Bill Weber, who previously made the popular 2001 doc The Cockettes, celebrated the fact that their film would hit theaters in September. “I felt strongly that this film needed to be made by someone who’s lived through the onset of AIDS, the horror and the beauty of those years,” Weissman said in a statement.

Sundance Film Festival audiences praised the documentary We Were Here, a powerful look back at San Francisco in the ‘80s and the devastating impact of the AIDS epidemic, and their enthusiasm led to the film’s recent acquisition by Red Flag Releasing. Co-director David Weissman and co-director and editor Bill Weber, who previously made the popular 2001 doc The Cockettes, celebrated the fact that their film would hit theaters in September. “I felt strongly that this film needed to be made by someone who’s lived through the onset of AIDS, the horror and the beauty of those years,” Weissman said in a statement.

Sundance Film Festival audiences praised the documentary We Were Here, a powerful look back at San Francisco in the ‘80s and the devastating impact of the AIDS epidemic, and their enthusiasm led to the film’s recent acquisition by Red Flag Releasing. Co-director David Weissman and co-director and editor Bill Weber, who previously made the popular 2001 doc The Cockettes, celebrated the fact that their film would hit theaters in September. “I felt strongly that this film needed to be made by someone who’s lived through the onset of AIDS, the horror and the beauty of those years,” Weissman said in a statement.

Sundance Film Festival audiences praised the documentary We Were Here, a powerful look back at San Francisco in the ‘80s and the devastating impact of the AIDS epidemic, and their enthusiasm led to the film’s recent acquisition by Red Flag Releasing. Co-director David Weissman and co-director and editor Bill Weber, who previously made the popular 2001 doc The Cockettes, celebrated the fact that their film would hit theaters in September. “I felt strongly that this film needed to be made by someone who’s lived through the onset of AIDS, the horror and the beauty of those years,” Weissman said in a statement.

Red Flag Releasing has acquired North American rights to Sundance AIDS doc We Were Here for September release in theaters followed by OnDemand, DVD, digital downloads and television (spring 2012). Produced and directed by David Weissman and editor/co-director Bill Weber (The Cockettes), We Were Here, about the devastating impact of AIDS on San Francisco's gay community in the 80s, also screened at the Berlin International Film Festival. Trailer is below. Red Flag Releasing is distributing the film with partners: the filmmakers, The Film Collaborative, New Video and PBS’ Independent Lens. The film’s release will include an educational/non-theatrical outreach component through New Yorker Films. Global producer’s rep Jonathan Dana and Tfc’s Orly Ravid handled the deals. "We Were Here richly deserves the first-class treatment it will ...

In the early 1970s, in the shadow of the Stonewall riots and the free-love movement, gay men and lesbians flocked to San Francisco to find acceptance. They formed a thriving, tight-knit community until the arrival of AIDS in the early 1980s drove them under siege. Director David Weissman ("The Cockettes" screened at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival) chronicles this transformative era through the stories of five individuals who lived through ...

In the early 1970s, in the shadow of the Stonewall riots and the free-love movement, gay men and lesbians flocked to San Francisco to find acceptance. They formed a thriving, tight-knit community until the arrival of AIDS in the early 1980s drove them under siege. Director David Weissman ("The Cockettes" screened at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival) chronicles this transformative era through the stories of five individuals who lived through ...

I first became aware of Joshua Grannell and his alter ego, Peaches Christ, on a trip to San Francisco in 2000, maybe 2001? I was dating a guy who had moved down from Sf to Los Angeles, and on one of our many trips up north we took in a screening of Showgirls at the Midnight Mass summer film series. Peaches was the host of the evening, and the show opened with a re-enactment of both the “Goddess” number and the “Nomi F-s Zack in the pool” scene with drag queens (and one drag king playing “Zack.”) I was hooked.

Over the years I would try and catch Midnight Mass screenings whenever I was up in Sf. I found out that Peaches was actually Grannell who was actually a manager at the Bridge, the theater in which the madness took place. Grannell programmed the series, and created unique pre-shows with his drag...