Filmmaker Brandon Cordeiro was in New York the day after the massacre at the Pulse Club in Orlando and immediately on hearing the news, he became one of organizers of the spontaneous Vigil held later that day outside the Stonewall Inn. Later back home in Provincetown he decided that an appropriate way to both memorialize the innocent victims and to help raise funds for the survivors was to form a special Team to participate in P Town’s Annual Swim For Life.
For Cordeiro it marked a full circle as earlier that year he had released his first short movie called Ribbons which was about him as a young gay boy growing up in P.Town and witnessing the growth of the Swim For Life which had started 29 years ago to raise much needed funds for people with HIV. The AIDS pandemic had greatly impacted the town’s significant LGBT population, but it’s very crucial legacy from that difficult era was the way it brought the community together as a whole.
Each of the seemingly endless yards of strings of colorful ribbons that flutter in the wind at every Swim For Life bares a personal dedication to someone’s memory. This year the Event’s Director Jay Critchley decided to add one black ribbon for each of the people who lost their lives at Pulse, and in moving ceremony they were tied on to the display after each name was read out loud. Cordeiro was one of the speakers there and he announced plans to not only swim himself this year but to form a group with other swimmers specifically to honor the 49 innocent people.
queerguru talked to Cordeiro as he was donning his wetsuit just about to start the swim ….. and waited there to make sure he got back safely !
P.S. Provincetown’s annual SWIM FOR LIFE is now 29 years old, and has raised over $4million to help AIDS, Women’s Health and the Community. http://swim4life.org/
Now as the movie is about to have its NY premiere at NewFest on October 22nd before being released in selected US movie theaters on November 11th, we are re-publishing our interview which was filmed by Heather Reed at Sage Lounge & Inn for P.T.V.
Click HERE to see Queerguru’s full review of the movie.
Now as the movie is about to have its NY premiere at NewFest on October 22nd before being released in selected US movie theaters on November 11th, we are re-publishing our interview which was filmed by Heather Reed at the Sage Lounge & Inn for P.T.V.
Click HERE to see queerguru’s full review of the movie.
When 20 year old filmmaker Alden Peters decided he was ready to come out as a gay man to his family and friends he did some research to see if he could find any sort of guidelines to help him handle the situation. He was particularly concerned with how to deal with the next step after his coming out, but sadly he could find nothing at all that offered any real advice. This was all about the same time as the tragic death of college student Tyler Clementi who took his own life after being outed by a roommate, and so the whole dialogue about the sensitive subject had publicly taken on a new dimension in the media.
So in the end the utterly charming Peters did it the only way he knew, and that was to film each of the encounters which he hoped would then help him and his immediate circle understand the situation better.
Peters was unquestionably one of the lucky ones with a family that loves him unconditional and a set of friends that accept him for who he is without question. The result is a remarkably wonderful insightful documentary called Coming Out that Wolfe Video are releasing on VOD to celebrate National Coming Out Day on Tuesday 11th October. To mark the occasion Alden Peters talked to queerguru via FaceTime for P.T.V. about the movie and the journey it took him on.
For queerguru’s full review of Coming Out the film, click HERE
Miami based LGBT activist and lawyer Elizabeth Schwartz has just published her first book BEFORE I DO : A Legal Guide to Marriage, Gay & Otherwise. On the eve of the book’s launch in P.Town on October 9th as part of Womensweek & BridePride, Elizabeth sat down with queerguru aka Roger Walker-Dack to explain why this book is essential reading for everyone about to get married …..including queerguru himself.
The interview was filmed by Richard Bolton for P.T.V.
Author queerguruPosted on Categories queerguru.tv
