Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives

About

A mosaic of interviews with 26 gay men and lesbians describing their experiences of coming out, love and heartbreak, fighting prejudice and discriminatory laws, Word Is Out was the first feature-length documentary on queer identity made by queer filmmakers. Among the interviewees are poet Elsa Gidlow, political activist Sally Gearhart, inventor John Burnside, civil rights leader Harry Hay, and avant-garde filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky. The film had a huge impact and became an icon of the emerging gay rights movement of the 1970s. Almost fifty years later, ready to be rediscovered, it is both a record of past struggles and an opportunity to reflect on the path we still have to travel.