62 JUStOUt
JUNE 13, 2008
television
hereO
Films
Double Feature llinh+ The Political
at the movies
and the Personal
Films document queer senior citizens,
Tel Aviv clothier, roller derby revival
JbT
by Christopher McQuain
s its acknowledgment of Gay Pride
a partner dies or being put on a waiting list for
Month, Sundance Channel is dedi decent public housing to open up.
cating its weekly “DocDay” premieres
In this way, the film pinpoints where the
to films centered on queer lives and
struggle of queer senior citizens dovetails with the
issues. Their subjects are sometimes
struggle of all sexual minority people, who face
fun, sometimes quite serious, but always direct
meaty financial discrimination from our govern
and interesting. The variety of perspectives and
ment until same-sex partners are legally recog
the many examples of queer history and struggle
nized at the federal level. For now, these struggles
in these films make for a great reminder of one
share the same fate: Jacoby follows some specific
of the principal concepts of queer visibility, activ
action proposals on queer senior issues to the 2005
ism and pride: that the political and the personal
White House Conference on Aging, where they
frequently intersect and are never very far away
are stonewalled by the Bush White House.
from each other.
Against this frustrating background, a picture
emerges of the many ways in which our communi
Ten More Good Years
ty can function as family, in addition to the ways
Ten More Good Years (9 p.m. June 16) employs
we can do better; the generational divide between
a prismatic approach to tackle the oft-neglected
younger queers and their elders is painfully illus
issue of queer senior citizens, and its cumulative
trated by interviews with young men who seem
thoroughness adds up to an impressively wide-
somewhat baffled to learn that gay lives really do
ranging take on the topic.
go on after 30.
Filmmaker Michael Jacoby uses interview
Ten More Good Years is “serious” public service
footage with several senior citizens—a New
programming that’s also compelling and enter
York City artist, a retired San Francisco building
taining. Beyond the audience of queer seniors
manager, an ex-sailor who became a mime and
that shares the immediate concerns of the film’s
a transgender African American who was at the
subjects, this is important viewing for younger
Stonewall riots—as the film’s core. Complemen queers, who, as the film illustrates, are in danger
tary interviews with queer senior advocates and
of neglecting our history by ignoring our elders.
researchers detail various sociopolitical etiologies
of, and potential solutions to, the problems the
Stefan Braun
seniors describe.
The story documented in Itamar Alkalay’s
Foremost among those problems is the very
Stefan Braun (9 p.m. June 23) is like something
basic matter of attaining and keeping sufficient
out of Dynasty: It has forbidden love, infidelity,
income and housing, a difficulty compounded for
upper-crust glamour and a bitter battle over an
queer seniors by institutionalized homophobia and
inheritance. But the fact that it all happened
the tendency for the heterosexual peers of a queer
for real makes the story less frivolous and much
senior to be “old-fashioned” (read: homophobic).
more deep and captivating than its soapy events
Facts, figures and research underpin the real-life
might suggest.
details of seeing one’s Social Security income ar
Braun was one of Tel Aviv’s most celebrated
bitrarily decreased, being left in near-poverty after
clothiers, a furrier who moved in the highest so-
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KISS-, DEADL Y
PG 13]
/I JACOB KEANE ASSICNMENJ
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