Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives (1992)
- Directed by
- Lynne Fernie
- Genre
- documentary film, LGBTQ-related film
- Country
- Canada
- Runtime
- 1h 25m
- Rated
- 14A
- Rating
- 6.8 of 10 from 16 voters
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
This documentary mixes interviews with older lesbians in Canada and a fictional 1950s-style melodrama to show what it was like to be a lesbian when it was still illegal. The elders talk about finding secret bars and building community, while the fictional story follows a woman's first night with another woman. The film includes clips from lesbian pulp fiction covers.
nostalgicintimatereflectivehopefulretroearnestheartfeltinformal
What happens
Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives is a 1992 Canadian hybrid drama-documentary film about Canadian lesbians navigating their sexuality while homosexuality was still criminalized. Interviews with lesbian elders are juxtaposed with a fictional story, shot in fifties melodrama style, of a small-town girl's first night with another woman. It also inserts covers of lesbian pulp fiction. The film presents the stories of lesbians whose desire for community led them on a search for the few public beer parlours or bars that would tolerate openly queer women in the 1950s and 60s in Canada. It was written and directed by Lynne Fernie and Aerlyn Weissman and featured author Ann Bannon. It premiered at the 1992 Toronto Festival of Festivals and was released in the United States on 4 August 1993. It was produced by Studio D, the women's studio of the National Film Board of Canada. In May 2014, the National Film Board of Canada ("NFB") re-released the film in a digitally remastered version. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
More like this
Thank God I'm a Lesbian (1992)
Lesbiana: A Parallel Revolution (2012)
Amazones d'Hier, Lesbiennes d'Aujourd'hui (1982)
A Kind of Family (1992)
Nitrate Kisses (1992)
Some Even Fall in Love (1980)
The Yo-Yo Gang (1992)
Toward Intimacy (1992)- More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.