Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival 2009

Like AMANCIO: TWO FACES ON A TOMBSTONE, Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson's inspirational film OUT IN THE SILENCE takes a fascinating look at the clash between gays and lesbians who are no longer willing to remain invisible and their small-town American communities where conservative "Christian" "family values" are the order of the day. In AMANCIO, the setting was the booming agricultural town of Yuma, Arizona in the US Southwest, whereas this story takes place in Oil City, Pennsylvania. A small town in the heart of the American rust belt, Oil City struggles to find a new identity and to fill its empty downtown storefronts after residents fled the former oil boomtown in the 1970s. Gay filmmaker and Oil City native Joe Wilson returns when he hears of young gay student C.J. being harassed and threatened at the local high school. As he, C.J. and C.J.'s mother face the school's resistance to diversity training, the filmmakers also introduce us to a lesbian couple who face discrimination in the community as they work to restore a dilapidated art deco cinema and create a vibrant place for the arts in the heart of their small city. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, same-sex couples reported living in all but 21 of our country's 3,140 counties—so "we are everywhere" is quite literally true. With gay and lesbian couples admitting, even just on census forms, that they exist in all parts of the country, GLBT rights can no longer be considered just a "big city" issue. It's moving and exciting to hear the brave stories of those who are struggling against the grain for visibility and acceptance of gays and lesbians in places like Yuma and Oil City where "gay rights" is largely still a totally foreign concept.