On Tuesday, officials with the El Paso Museum of History (EPMH) officials announced the new film exhibition Pride Cinema: Queer Film and Culture in the 20th and 21st Century.
The exhibition,which opens Saturday, June 1, the start of international PRIDE month, will feature films focused on LGBTQ+ issues in the 20th and 21st Century.
The films in the exhibit, Milk, Paris is Burning, Longtime Companion and others, share the adversities, benchmarks and successes of LBGTQ+ people with a broader audience.
Local El Paso and Juarez LGBTQ+ histories are paired with these films highlighting the reality of these issues as they are ever-present within the borderland community.
“This programming highlights unique local histories that are significant to the El Paso and Juarez region,” said El Paso Museum of History Director Vladimir von Tsurikov. “We are dedicated to bringing more inclusive exhibitions that reflect our diverse communities.”
In addition to the exhibit, the museum will display two panels from the 1987 NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt throughout June. Before the opening of the exhibition, visitors are encouraged to attend a community vigil scheduled for 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 1, at Cleveland Square Park.
EPMH has partnered with the Borderland Rainbow Center (BRC), a local non-profit organization dedicated to providing resources for the El Paso LGBTQ+ community and its allies, to exhibit two sections from the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.
Individuals seeking to memorialize their loved ones who died from AIDS can create a quilt panel and submit to the NAMES Project Foundation. The Quilt was displayed in the fall of 1987 across the National Mall in Washington D.C. and was composed of 1,920 individual panels spanning the length of a football field.
The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt is recognized as a monumental legacy to bringing awareness to the AIDS/HIV pandemic.
The Pride Cinema: Queer Film and Culture in the 20th and 21st Century exhibit runs through November and is free and open to the public.
