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	The films at the festival cover a broad range of issues that include the needs of LGBT youth, raising children, 
	transgender issues, relationships with family members, the politics of AIDS, the history of entertainment in LGBT culture, 
	and the history of LGBT activism and institution-building in the United States.  

	The festival is an example of alternative education at its best. The filmmakers are at the cutting edge of their craft and 
	the issues they raise push the envelope of mainstream culture in the hope that the more people understand the issues of the 
	LGBT community, the more comfortable members of that community will be in our society. Continue reading for some background 
	on the Harry Hay film playing on Saturday, March 8th. 
		
	
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	Mourning the Death of Harry Hay, Early Gay Rights Activist
	

	On October 24th, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) reported the death of Harry Hay in the following story:

	"Well-known gay rights activist Harry Hay has passed away at the age of 90. 'Today, our movement lost one of its treasures. 
	The death of legendary gay activist Harry Hay leaves a heavy sadness in our hearts and minds,' said Lorri L. Jean, Executive 
	Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. 'Harry was one of the pioneers of the gay rights movement. His courageous 
	and visionary leadership laid the groundwork for today's activists seeking full equality for the LGBT community. We join Harry's
	countless friends and loved ones in mourning his passing.'

	In 1950, Harry Hay and four others formed one of the nation's first gay rights organizations, the Mattachine Society. The idea 
	that homosexuals should organize for civil rights was formed at an election year party in Los Angeles that was attended exclusively
	by gay ment. The organization was named for the Matachinos, court jesters of the Italian Renaissance who, behind their masks, were 		
	free to speak the truth. The Mattachine Society was the first to propose the idea of gay and lesbian people as an oppressed 
	cultural minority.

	In the 1960's Hay helped organize the first 'gay pride' parade in Los Angeles, was chair of the L.A. Committee to Fight the Exclusion 
	of Homosexuals from the Armed Forces and chair of the Southern California Gay Liberation Front. In the late 70's and early 80's, 
	Hay became increasingly concerned with spiritual issues and formed the Radical Faeries, a movement devoted to ecology spiritual 
	truth and 'gay-centeredness'.

	NGLTF honored Hay at the October 1999 Creating Change (TM) conference. In his award acceptance speech, Hay said, "I want you to 		
	realize, of course, that by honoring me you are all honoring yourselves. In 1948, when I first rifled through Alfred Kinsey's
	best-selling book The Sexual Behavior of the Human Male, I sensed then that his book should require that all Americans
 	forevermore recast their thinking about homosexuals. His chapter five was implying to me that we were a class of people with 
	the social and political dimensions of a cultural minority, indeed, a viciously oppressed minority, who, were we to organize, 
	might someday even liberate ourselves under principles protected by the American Constitution."

	Out At the Movies is showing the movie Hope Along the Wind: The Life of Harry Hay. This film depicts rarely seen archival footage as 		
	well as revealing interviews centered around Hay's work as a labor and Communist Party organizer along with his groundbreaking 
	and courageous founding of the Mattachine Society
	
	(cited from The Prism Newsleter, December 2002)