||SYLVIA'S PLACE||
Sylvia Rae Rivera (1951-2002) was a veteran of the Stonewall Riots and an LGBT/drag queen activist. On her deathbed, she insisted that Reverend Pat Bumgardner of the Metropolitan Community Church in New York City promise that the church would create accommodations so that LGBT youth could find
a safe space to spend the night when all other options were exhausted.
Born from that promise is Sylvia's Place, an emergency over-night shelter for self-identified gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth from 16 to 23 years of age. Its primary focus is to provide a safe space, a good meal, a cot for the night and breakfast in the morning. The care workers provide a listening ear, affirmation, and a friendly voice of encouragement.
||CAST||
Our crew followed the lives of seven residents of Sylvia's Place, NYC's only emergency shelter for LGBT homeless youth, through the summer and fall of 2006. Click on the images at the top of the page to read more about their lives and see clips from the film.
||CREW||
Sarah Feightner is a new media journalist who has produced stories in video, audio and print for Publisher's Weekly, the New York Review of Magazines, the Columbia News Service, and Columbia University Press. Sarah wants to be a multimedia documentarian and social-justice bleeding heart when she grows up. Click here to visit her website.
Brooke Sopelsa is a video producer at CNBC.com. Prior to this, she was an on-air reporter for Time Warner Cable Channel 10 News in New Jersey. Brooke holds an economics degree from Bucknell University, and her interests include walking around Border's Bookstore, watching Showtime's Dexter and worshipping Warren Buffett.
Alex Waterfield is a a freelance producer for ABC’s NewsNow and a freelance cameraman for BBC News and APTN. Before his life in broadcast, Alex started his own volunteer travel company, Tembeza Kenya, which he still owns.
All three are recent graduates of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
||EXECUTIVE PRODUCER||
Lisa Cohen is an Emmy-award winning television news magazine producer with over twenty years of network news experience at both ABC News and CBS News. At PrimeTime Live and then at 60 Minutes II she produced reports for Diane Sawyer, Sam Donaldson, Cynthia McFadden and others on topics as diverse as the right to bear arms, have abortions and exercise the death penalty.
In 2004, Cohen left television news to teach broadcast reporting at Columbia University and to write a book on the twenty-five-year search for Etan Patz, often called “the most famous missing child since the Lindbergh baby.” The book is scheduled for publication by Warner Books in May 2009.
||SCREENINGS||
Upcoming screenings:
Oct 5
Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival
When: Friday, October 5at 4:30 p.m.
Where: Regal Arbor Cinemas, 9828 Great Hills Trail
Previous screenings:
PIGLFF Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
FRAMELINE San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival 2007
NEWFEST New York LGBT Film Festival 2007
Columbia University Broadcast Masters Screening
Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival 2007
Metropolitan Community Church, NYC
Village Church in Greenwich Village, NYC
Saint Bartholomew's Church, NYC
Hunter College, Urban Public Health Program
Want to arrange a screening in your town? Contact us.
||FOR THE PRESS||
Click here to download a PDF of our press kit.
Click here to listen to an interview with the cast and crew
on Out-FM with host Brad Taylor.
Check out this article for a mention of QUEER STREETS in the
New York Times.
Velvetpark's Grace Moon interviews filmmakers Brooke Sopelsa and
Sarah Feightner at Newfest.
