Stonewall

New York, 1969. A young man arrives from the provinces and settles in Greenwich Village. He gets to know the regulars at a bar called the Stonewall Inn: people who do drag, people raided by the police over and over, people who have to live as somebody else by day. A raid in June puts an end to what had until then been quietly accepted. Nigel Finch's film was inspired by a book by the historian Martin Duberman. It uses invented characters; it is not a document but an attempt to convey what the period felt like. Finch died of an AIDS-related illness during post-production and the work was finished by his team. The telling puts the people doing drag at the front of the movement.