The Other Side: A Queer History

Join Lisa Derrick and Jane Cantillon, the director /producer of The Other Side: A Queer History, this evening at FDL, 8pm ET, for a lively chat.

Directed by Jane Cantillon, Produced and Edited By Kevin Elliott, Executive Produced by Richard Ross, Associate Produced by Stuart Timmons. Featuring in order of appearance: Duncan Donovan, Milton Mangum. Don “Queenie” Bartrem, Bette Bonaduce, John Holt, Bryan Miller, Robert Clark, Thomas Gibbons, James Lent, John Richards, Harry Bartron, Rudy Ruano, Guy Richards, John Callaghan, Tommy Dodson, Donald Watkins, Richard Little, Sonji Kimmons, Steve Hodel, Charles Edwards, and various piano bar performers.

“The Other Side” is about a bar and a fixture of the Silver Lake gay scene and the people who frequent it. This documentary invites you in to sit a while and sing along with a few showtunes at this old-fashioned piano bar while locals tell it like it was back in the day. Back when looking at someone the wrong way could land you a night in jail.

The Other Side has been a watering hole on the LA gay scene for over forty years and is a sort of “Cheers for the older gay crowd.” Rare archival imagery of gay life in past decades is mixed with cabaret numbers performed in the bar. Not so cheerful were moments in previous decades when undercover LAPD frequented the bar, dressing fey to entrap someone into propositioning them so they could hit him with a solicitation charge. While finding love and sex at a time when almost everyone was in the closet, then being hit by the devastating AIDS epidemic, these older men tell bittersweet stories of survival. Over the years, and many incarnations later, The Other Side has become the last gay piano bar in Los Angeles.

Jane Cantillon—Director/Producer of “The Other Side”, has been a fixture in the LA gay scene for many years, often performing at gay clubs and events, and in 2004 soloed at the Christopher Street West Festival. Over the last twelve years, Ms. Cantillon has covered the entertainment business for Entertainment Tonight, ET on MTV, Hard Copy, The Tyra Banks Show, and launched the first season of the reality show Blind Date. Ms. Cantillon lives in Los Angeles with her husband and teenage daughter. (Jane Cantillion)

[as ever, the main text is ripped from the FDL Book Salon page.]