jzappa In Salt Lake City in 1995, gay high school student Kelli Peterson started a gay and straight club at her school. The story of her proceeding struggle with school administration and powers that be intermingles with brief narrative accounts of noteworthy historical figures whose sexuality has kept those of us in the present from learning from them, such as Michael Wigglesworth, a 17th-century Puritan minister, the 30-year love affair of 1800s novelist and short story writer Sarah Orne Jewett and woman of letters Annie Fields, Henry Gerber, who doesn't even have a page on Wikipedia, and his effort after WW I to found the short-lived Society for Human Rights, Quaker civil rights activist Bayard Rustin's role in the civil rights movement and as principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. He advised Martin Luther King on nonviolent resistance. Then we find Barbara Gittings's maverick crusade against the American Psychiatric Association's stance that homosexuality was an illness.Contained by the concise length of an hour, narrated by revered Hollywood stars like Edward Norton and Gwyneth Paltrow, shot on 16mm film and paced with calm serenity, Jeffrey Dupre and Michelle Ferrari's independent documentary converges upon a reconsideration of American history. To establish a status for ourselves in our day, we have to identify with someone in the past, as this film makes obvious.This somber, maddening and tremendously intelligent picture is a moving record of a momentous subject which, though it concerns gays, affects us all, and makes its statement in an intelligent and moving manner.The wonderful Barbara Giddings is actually featured in an enormously moving climactic moment in which she and Kelli Peterson meet, and it is cloudless that if only Kelli, and other students like her, had merely been taught about people like this woman at whom she's waving in school, she would never have contemplated suicide and never would have needed to form a Gay Straight Alliance. This film, about love, about the nature of humanity, and not to be confused with Jacques Tourneur's overrated film noir, is an first-rate tribute and monument to those who died having lived lives committed to the greater good seeing no sign of their own acceptance by the society for which they fought so passionately.

harry-76 Within the short span of an hour and five minutes, this documentary focuses on a revisionary consideration of American history. The quest for human rights is a natural instinct within us all, as this film demonstrates.What a liberating thought that, after centuries of ignorance, fear, superstition and intolerance, some of the last vestiges of discrimination are neutralizing.The phenomenon is the result of "accelerating acceleration"--a momentum that speeds itself up as it accumulates more energy. In this case, the force comes from the people, as more and more hands join to unite in harmony."Out of the Past" is a touching mini-documentary on a significant topic which involves us all. Well conceived and executed, it makes its statement in an intelligent and moving manner. ###

pyotr-3 A top-notch documentary which beautifully weaves the story of Kelli Peterson, who tried to start a gay-straight alliance at a Salt Lake City high school, with tales of real gay heroes of the past. The wonderful Barbara Giddings is featured in a tremendously moving moment in which Kelli and Barbara meet, and it is clear that if only Kelli - and other students like her - had simply been told the facts about gay people in school she would never have wanted to commit suicide. This film is an excellent testament and memorial to those who died having lived miserable lives totally in the closet.

petshop A documentary covering two things. One gay and lesbian role models of the past. And two, a young lesbian in Utah who attemts to form a gay-straight alliance in her high school and runs into much resistance. Although the intent is honorable, and makes sense, the two elements never combine well.We are jerked into the past to stories of obscure figures with quotes that often seem like stretches of the imagination. Then thrust into into the quick-paced present day story. Not much detail is shed on either.Ultimately, the film is uplifting and reaffirming. A very good start.