Richard Shpuntoff

Julio of Jackson Heights

Richard Shpuntoff

Julio Rivera, a Bronx-born Puerto Rican hustler, was murdered in a schoolyard in Jackson Heights, Queens on July 2, 1990, by three young men looking to clean up their neighborhood by 'stretching out a gay guy', but instead the murder sparked the coming out of New York's largest and until then most closeted LGBTQ community.

Todo lo que se olvida en un instante

Richard Shpuntoff

Guillermo Saavedra, Miranda Svirsky

A bilingual documentary essay about the construction and illusions of American identity from an intimate, biographical and anecdotal perspective." I was born in New York City, a Jew from Queens, raised in the 1970s and 80s, the child of another New York Jew born in 1919, the child of immigrants from the Ukraine. When I became a father myself, I was gripped by the need to share this inheritance of identity with my daughters. But my daughters were born in Buenos Aires where I have been living since 2002.” Richard Shpuntoff