Source: Some information on this page may have been sourced as part of the 2023 Wikimedia Australia Partnership Projects grant, with the purpose of improving and expanding the use of Wikidata on our website. Wikidata is a free and open knowledge base that can be read and edited by both humans and machines. Read more about this project here.
In 1969 the police began a routine bust on the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York, a gay bar which was like the majority of others they raided regularly and harshly. This time however things did not go the way the police had planned - the gay community fought back. However, before Stonewall and as far back as the ‘20s, lesbians and gays had formed groups, printed newspapers, opened restaurants, discussed their problems. The film traces a half-century of a parallel culture with film clips, photographs and articles as well as witnesses. It analyses how gays and lesbians went about coming out of the closet; breaking the isolation of guilt and forming a community with its own problems and specific claims.
Content notification
Our collection comprises over 40,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued between the 1940s and early 2000s. As a result, some items may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.
Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.
How to watch
Collection
In ACMI's collection
Credits
Collection metadata
ACMI Identifier
324260
Language
English
Audience classification
MA
Subject categories
Courtroom, Crime, Espionage & Thrillers
Courtroom, Crime, Espionage & Thrillers → Police films
Documentary → Documentary films - United States
Family, Gender Identity, Relationships & Sexuality → Coming out (Sexual orientation)
Family, Gender Identity, Relationships & Sexuality → Gay and lesbian studies
Sound/audio
Sound
Colour
Colour
Holdings
VHS; Access Print (Section 1)