Author B. Ruby Rich, director Jean Carlomusto (Sex in an Epidemic) and producer Christine Vachon (Boys Don’t Cry, Far From Heaven) in person!

In this return to the early days of a movement that became a cinematic milestone, author and cultural critic B. Ruby Rich, in conversation with Dennis Lim, surveys the field as it was then: a rebellious mix of short films and videos mixing male tragedy with lesbian comedy. Rarely seen films and videos will be screened, including Jean Carlomusto’s hilarious L Is For The Way You Look, Isaac Julien’s elegiac This Is Not An AIDS Advertisement, and Sadie Benning’s Jollies, along with a piece of history that’s a surprise. Asked repeatedly for the key to what caused the New Queer Cinema to emerge in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Rich has an answer: AIDS, Reagan, Sony’s invention of the camcorder, and cheap rent. Considering those times, Rich will sign and read from her new book New Queer Cinema: The Director’s Cut (Duke University Press) and discuss the good old bad days of experimentation, creativity, and mortality.