21st Century Nuns

Soho
1994-03-16
Sound
15m

The Sisters of Pepetual Indulgence are an order of male, gay 'nuns' founded in San Francisco in the late 1970s. There are now thousands of nuns all over the world including 30 in Britain. The sisters include Sister Brigid Over Troubled Waters who was previously a monk, Sister Frigidity of the Nocturnal Emission and Sister Belladonna in Gloire de Marengo. The sisters are active campaigners in the gay and lesbian community and their role has expanded to cover issues such as the poll tax, the Gulf War and support for the miners. Derek Jarman was felt by the Sisters to be worthy of canonisation and proclaimed Saint Derek of Dungeness.

Queer Britain

This colourful and challenging collection explores screen representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lives over the past century.

British cinema boasts a long history of carefully coded queerness, but for much of the 20th century explicit depictions of gay life in drama or documentary were more or less taboo. Gay men were subject to vicious state-sanctioned persecution, while lesbians were socially ostracised and the transgender community ignored and misunderstood. Cinematic and small-screen breakthroughs in the 1950s and 60s played their part in the public debate. Finally acting on the recommendations of the Wolfenden Committee a decade earlier, the 1967 Sexual Offences Act partially decriminalised male homosexuality in England and Wales, between two men over 21, in private. As those caveats suggest, the legislation remained problematic. But it was a step forward, paving the way for further battles - some yet to be won. From early glimpses of 'queer' characters, this collection charts the path towards '67 and beyond, through responses to the AIDS crisis to diverse reflections on queer life today.