Jean Carlomusto

L Is for the Way You Look

Jean Carlomusto

A short work that cobbles together lesbian history using whatever scraps of gossip and memory can be found, weaving a humorous portrait of a population's creative tussle for visibility and inclusion.

Larry Kramer In Love & Anger

Jean Carlomusto

Larry Kramer, John Cameron Mitchell

From the onset of the AIDS epidemic, author Larry Kramer emerged as a fiery activist, an Old Testament-style prophet full of righteous fury who denounced both the willful inaction of the government and the refusal of the gay community to curb potentially risky behaviors. Co-founder of both organization Gay Men's Health Crisis and the direct action protest group ACT UP, Kramer was vilified by some who saw his criticism to be an expression of self-hatred, while lionized by others who credit him with waking up the gay community — and, eventually, the government and medical establishment — to the devastation of the disease.

Not Just Passing Through

Dolores Pérez, Polly Thistlethwaite

Joan Nestle, Jewelle Gomez

A documentary about lesbians preserving their history, with a focus on the work of the Lesbian Herstory Archives. Includes interviews with Joan Nestle, Jewelle Gomez, and Mariana Romo-Carmona, among others. Profiled are Mabel Hampton, Marge McDonald, theater group 5 Lesbian Brothers, and Asian Lesbians of the East Coast.

Compulsive Practice

Alexandra Juhasz, Jean Carlomusto

Juanita Mohammed, Ray Navarro

For the 2016 Day With(out) Art, Visual AIDS presents COMPULSIVE PRACTICE, a video compilation of compulsive, daily, and habitual practices by nine artists and activists who live with their cameras as one way to manage, reflect upon, and change how they are deeply affected by HIV/AIDS. This hour-long video program will be distributed internationally to museums, art institutions, schools and AIDS organizations.

Doctors, Liars, and Women: AIDS Activists Say No to Cosmo

Maria Maggenti, Jean Carlomusto

Outraged by the controversial January, 1988 article in Cosmopolitan magazine, the women in the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, (Act Up, New York), organized the first AIDS demonstration focused on women. Doctors, Liars and Women:AIDS Activists Say No To Cosmo not only documents the efforts of the Women's Committee to organize this protest, it also serves as a how-to-guide for direct action.

Something Fierce

Gregg Bordowitz, Jean Carlomusto

Short film created for Gay Men's Health Crisis

Sex in an Epidemic

Jean Carlomusto

Michael Shernoff, Kenyon Farrow

SEX IN AN EPIDEMIC is a pioneering documentary that explores the personal, political and structural challenges that have continually hampered the best efforts of HIV educators and community groups to curb HIV infection rates in the United States. It is a compelling history of the devastating early days of the epidemic in NYC, when men with "GRID" were a stigmatized population that died swiftly of a terrifying new disease. Few concepts have had as great an impact on sexuality over the past 28 years as that of "safer sex." Yet, as a concept, it is important to remember two things: first, safer sex had to be invented amidst an alarming lack of information that existed before the discovery of HIV in 1984; and second, safer sex as a concept had to be sold by the persistent and creative persuasion of community based groups all across the country.