Presented by Provincetown Film Society + Twenty Summers
Music Accompaniment by Billy Hough and Sue Goldberg
Q&A with Special Guest Brendan Lucas
Doors Open: 7:00 p.m.
Event Starts: 7:30 p.m.
The Provincetown Film Society (PFS) and Twenty Summers are pleased to collaborate on the first film screening in the Hawthorne Barn. To commemorate the 100-year history of cinema in Provincetown, we will showcase another 1919 cinematic milestone: Different From the Others, the first known pro-gay film in the world. We are proud to present the newly restored film with live musical accompaniment featuring an original score by Billy Hough and Sue Goldberg (of “Scream Along with Billy”), followed by a Q&A with Brendan Lucas, an expert on LGBTQ film and history.
$30
About PFS:
This event is being presented to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of cinema at PFS’s Whaler’s Wharf Location, now titled The Waters Edge Cinema. In 1919 the Provincetown Theater was built as a 600-seat theater by the newly formed First National Picture, an association of independent theater owners in the United States who were reacting to the overwhelming influence of the big studios that dominated the market at the time. Among the films that played at the theater were Daddy Long Legs, starring Mary Pickford, and Back to God’s Country, directed by Nell Shipman, Hollywood’s first female director. Ninety-four years later, the Provincetown Film Society renovated and built the Waters Edge Cinema, home to year-round programming of new-release art house films, mini–film festivals, special screenings, and its annual Provincetown International Film Festival.
About the Film Different From The Others:
Different From The Others was banned at the time of its release, later burned by the Nazis, and was believed lost for more than forty years. Using recently discovered film segments, still photos, and censorship documents from different archives, Filmmuseum Muenchen has resurrected this truly groundbreaking silent film for DVD.
Enacted in 1871, the German penal code's Paragraph 175 sentenced thousands of accused German homosexual men to jail terms for "unnatural vice between men." In 1919 director Richard Oswald (Tales of the Uncanny) and psychologist Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld created a film intended to expose the unjust Paragraph 175 and help liberate the "third sex" from legal persecution and public scorn. Different From The Others features Conrad Veidt (Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) as Paul Korner, a gay concert pianist blackmailed by a closeted low-life named Bollek. When Korner's budding romance with a handsome young music student runs afoul of Bollek's extortion, Korner goes to the German courts for protection. But the draconian Paragraph 175 makes criminals out of both accuser and accused, and the love Korner has found may cost him his career, his freedom, or his life. Veidt's uncompromising performance puts a human face on Hirschfeld's reformist fervor and Oswald's tragic melodrama. In its frank depiction of gay bars, closeted homosexuality, and the suffocating expectations of straight society, Different From The Others is both a fascinating time capsule and a remarkably modern cinematic plea for tolerance and change.
About Brendan Lucas:
Brendan Lucas attended UC Santa Barbara and the Moving Image Archive Studies Program at UCLA. He is currently the Legacy Project Manager for the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project, a joint effort between Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival and the UCLA Film and Television Archive, where he supports the collection, documentation, preservation and exhibition of LGBTQ moving images. For the past 5 years, Brendan has worked at Deluxe Audio Services (formerly Chace Audio) where he has coordinated and written about audio restoration projects for film and television.
Born and raised in San Francisco Bay Area, he currently lives in Los Angeles, where he can be found hovering between "Interested" and "Going" on social media for a variety of artistic and cultural events in and around his adoptive hometown.
About Billy Hough and Susan Goldberg (Scream Along with Billy):
Billy Hough (composer) and Susan Goldberg (arranger) formed their band ‘Scream Along with Billy’ in Provincetown in 2006. Their punk/cabaret act (called “the bravest thing I’ve seen in 20 years” by local film mastadon, John Waters) has a rabid following from Los Angeles’ Chateau Marmont to New York’s Joe’s Pub.
Hough has recently composed original music for three films from director Oren Moverman: “Rampart,” “The Dinner,” and 2015’s “Time Out of Mind” for which he provided the film’s theme song, “Radical Days.” He also contributed the “love theme” for the locally produced horror film, “Daniel,” directed by townie Alain Furcajg.
Hough and Goldberg’s 2013 album “Venice” has inspired a series of locally shot videos by a group of brilliant young filmmakers. As the producer of the audiobook for Michael Cunningham’s wildly successful collection of fairy tales, “A Wild Swan,” Billy and actress Lili Taylor alternated readings over GarageDogs’ unique score. The project won Audible’s “Audie” Award for the best audio books of 2015.
Composing a score for a silent film has long been one of Billy’s dreams. His mother still has his kindergarten assignment which reads “When I grow up I want to be Lon Chaney, Sr.” Sue’s ability to turn Billy’s ideas into actual music may be the secret behind their prolific collaboration. With this score, she has done so again, and beautifully.
Billy and Sue would like to dedicate this piece to their Dads. Both of whom were in show business and loved the movies.
(Photo (c) Nina West.