Four Victories You Can Celebrate
Wednesday 30 Dec 2015By Debra Chasnoff, President/Senior Producer | It's Elementary, Let's Get Real, Respect For All Project, Straightlaced, That's A Family!
We are fast approaching the 30th anniversary of Choosing Children, GroundSpark’s first film (from back when we used to be called Women’s Educational Media). To celebrate, we are releasing a newly mastered version of this historically significant documentary on DVD.
The DVD also features in-depth interviews with me, Kim Klausner—the co-producer/director of the film, and attorney Donna Hitchens. “The Back Story” explores what we went through in the early 1980s to be able to find the pioneering women who had found ways to become mothers as out lesbians and capture their stories on film.
We are delighted to be able to share this DVD with you, our GroundSpark friends and supporters, before it goes on sale to a wider audience.
It’s been quite a journey to get to the point where I can actually hold this Choosing Children DVD in my hands. Many years ago we learned that the film storage facility where the original 16mm negative of the film had been housed had gone out of business–without tracking us down to return the master!
That set us off on a quest to preserve the film. First, we were selected by the Women’s Film Preservation Fund of New York Women in Film and Television for a small restoration grant. Then, the Outfest Film Festival Legacy Project for LGBT Film Preservation decided to fund the complete restoration. Working with the UCLA Film and Television Archive, the Legacy Project used one of the last remaining relatively pristine film prints, housed at the Library of Congress, to construct a new 35 mm film print.
In 2010, GroundSpark produced a large benefit screening of Choosing Children in partnership with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere, Our Family Coalition, The San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Community Center, Frameline, and the Bay Area chapters of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. Dozens of community members made generous donations that enabled us to transfer the new film print into a digital format for DVD. In the last few months, we have worked with Zoetrope Aubry Productions to create a beautiful digital transfer and master the DVD.
Kim and I also sat down on the other side of the camera to be interviewed about our adventures making Choosing Children and the impact of that process on LGBT culture and on our own personal lives. Here’s a little taste of what we are calling the Choosing Children “Back Story”, the part where we remember our very first screening, in Boston in December, 1984.
Now, Here’s where you come in! Can you help make sure this important chapter in lesbian feminist history is shared widely? There are many ways to get involved:
Finally, I want to mark this moment with huge thank yous to many people and organizations that have helped keep Choosing Children in distribution all these years:
When I received an invitation to “Some Prefer Cake” the lesbian film festival in Bologna, Italy, of course I said “Si si si!” Tagliatelle, tortellini en brodo, miles of archway-covered streets and a sea of Italian lesbians. I cleared my calendar immediately.
I’m happy to report that I was able to enjoy all those delights last week. But the most important thing that happened on this trip is that, once again, I saw GroundSpark’s mission come alive. We “create visionary films and dynamic educational campaigns that move individuals and communities to take action for a more just world.” This time, the “world” was Italy.
The festival had programmed a selective retrospective of the films I have directed. Watching them again through Italian lesbian eyes provided a remarkable opportunity to take in how much social change these films have helped create and how much more work there is to be done all over the world.
When the lights went up after Choosing Children, the documentary Kim Klausner and I made 28 years ago, the audience was pensive and somewhat stunned. They couldn’t believe the courage of the women in the film who had found ways to have children as out lesbians. I learned that lesbians are not yet opting to become parents in Italy. “We don’t even talk about it,” one woman explained. “It’s just impossible with the way that the Catholic Church controls everything.” “I know one couple that wanted to have children,” another offered. “But they had to move to Spain. You can’t do it here.”
In the discussion of this film and then later of It’s STILL Elementary (made with Johnny Symons), I had an opportunity to share GroundSpark’s perspective on the importance of fighting the taboo and stigma the LGBT community historically has faced when it comes to anything connected to children.
We will never have full civil rights—in the United States, or anywhere in the world—as long as a perception remains that LGBT people should be kept away from children. That belief is the basis for so much of the animosity, and the rationalization for why our relationships are less important, less deserving of full legal rights, than heterosexual ones are.
When the festivalgoers watched One Wedding and a Revolution (made with Kate Stilley Steiner) they were equally transfixed. Former Mayor Gavin Newsom’s courage in deciding to grant marriage licenses to same sex couples was unbelievable to them. “And he’s Catholic!” one woman exclaimed.
At the end of the last screening, a woman stood up and said, “Thank you so much for coming here to be with us. You have shown us that we must stop just talking to ourselves. We must have the courage to interact with the rest of the society and talk about children and marriage, that those are key to a new future.”
Marta, one of the festival producers, was effusive. “You got them talking to each other, about things we never discuss. I see these same women at many events, but we never have a conversation like that.”
She started waving goodbye as women began heading back home, not just to their apartments in Bologna, but back to Sardinia, Milan, and other regions of the country. I could see the ripple effects of the screenings go with them into the night.
I went outside and met with a journalist who was covering my visit. “So, you are an activist, not just a filmmaker?” I smiled, thinking of everyone back home who has made this work possible and whom I know stands with me. “Si – that’s right.”
Wedding video of Del Martin and Phylis Lyon.
One year after Del Martin’s passing, we here at GroundSpark would like to remember her and celebrate her life. Here she is at her wedding to Phyllis Lyon in May 2008. Our thoughts go out to Del’s family as we remember this incredible hero and amazing woman.
One Wedding and a Revolution has been accepted for the 4th Annual Gero-Ed Film Festival held at the Council on Social Work Education’s (CSWE) Annual Program Meeting. The festival features films that show positive images of older adults or that highlight aging issues.
Since 2006 the Gero-Ed Film Festival, which is sponsored by the CSWE Gero-Ed Center, has introduced social work educators, students, and leaders to important films, such as One Wedding and a Revolution. With remarkable footage of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, long-time lesbian activists, marrying on their 51st anniversary, this film demonstrates that marriage equality affects people of all ages.
GroundSpark looks forward to having our film featured again this year!
Straightlaced: How Gender’s Got Us All Tied Up screened at the Roxie Theater last Friday to a sold out crowd at Frameline 33: San Francisco’s LGBT Film Festival! With a mixed crowd of film lovers, educators, Debra Chasnoff fans, and youth, the film was received warmly at it’s West Coast film festival premiere. Read the rest of this post…
Groundspark Executive Director and Senior Producer,Debra Chasnoff, earned her cred long ago when she won an Oscar for her short documentary Deadly Deception, an exposé on General Electric’s involvement in building and testing nuclear bombing, precipitating GE’s pullout of the industry nine months later.
In this edition of GO Magazine, she finds herself among the likes of Wanda Sykes, Ellen Degeneres, and emerging stars in the field of LGBT culturing mainlining. It also gets Groundspark on the hip pages of a fancy cool magazine! Check it out!
This Friday, June 26 at 6:00 PM, as part of Frameline33 – San Francisco’s LGBT Film Festival, Director Debra Chasnoff and Producer Sue Chen will be at the Roxie Theater for a local San Francisco screening of Straightlaced
NOTE: On Frameline’s website, the show is listed as SOLD OUT, but rush tickets are available! If you come to the door a half hour or so early and tell the box office to put you on the standby list, you will probably get in, as some unused tickets will become available. Q & A with director and producer after feature. See you there!
News from around the world that directly connects to the issues GroundSpark works on in our Respect for All Project!
IN THE LIFE, which recently featured It’s STILL Elementary is commemorating Women’s History Month by focusing its lens on the representation of LGBT women in television and cinema.