In its aim to promote honest dialogue on sexuality and gender identity in Guyana, the Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD) has launched ‘Painting the Spectrum 5,’ its fifth festival of films dealing with different aspects of same sex relationships.

Commencing on June 1, the festival will open with the award winning Brother Outsider, which is a feature-length documentary portrait of Bayard Rustin, which focuses on Rustin’s activism for peace, racial equality, economic justice and human rights. According to a press release sent by SASOD, Rustin was a master strategist and tireless activist best remembered as the organiser of the 1963 march on Washington which saw one of the largest nonviolent protests in the United States. Rustin was credited with bringing Gandhi’s protest techniques to the American civil rights movement and helping to mould Martin Luther King Jr. into an international symbol of peace and nonviolence.

An openly gay man himself, Rustin, despite these achievements, was silenced, threatened, arrested, beaten, imprisoned and fired from important leadership positions, largely because of his sexual orientation in a fiercely homophobic era. The second film, Karmen Gei, from Senegal, will be shown on June 2. Karmen Gei is an adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen with a different interpretation of the strong female personality of Carmen.This year’s film festival comprises five documentaries, four dramas, three comedies, two short films and one musical featuring perspectives on gay, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered persons with stories from Australia, India, South Africa, Senegal, Egypt, Spain, Italy, Canada and the USA.

The release also said that SASOD is privileged to present films from Dr Michelle Mohabeer and Renata Mohamed, two members of the Guyanese Diaspora.

All film screenings will be followed by discussions with the audience. Highlights of the festival as stated by the release, include, the documentary Straightlaced which looks at the problems which gender identities pose for young people and the lengths to which people go to maintain male and female identities and the Academy Award winning Milk, the story of Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay public officials in the USA. The festival is sponsored through collaborations and donations from several organisations including the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, Third World Newsreel, California Newsreel, Maraia Films, Groundspark and through kind donations of individuals.

The films are intended for mature audiences and are screened at Side Walk Cafe from 7 pm on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays throughout June.

Admission is free.