The Tara Theatre hosted a special screening of Andrew Durham’s award-winning film “Fairyland” on Saturday, featuring a post-show talkback with some of Atlanta’s longtime LGBTQ+ activists.
Coordinated by Touching Up Our Roots: Georgia’s LGBTQ+ Story Project and Georgia LGBTQ History Project, speakers included Abby Drue, Lorraine Fontana, Maria Helena Dolan, Gil Robison, and Gus Kaufman.
Historian Wes Nimmo, who authored Atlanta’s LGBTQ Context Statement, moderated the conversation, which also included a tribute to activist and historian Dave Hayward, the co-founder of Touching Up Our Roots, who died last month.
The film tells the true story of the late Steve Abbott, a former Atlanta resident who lost his wife in a car accident in 1973 and moved with his daughter to San Francisco so he could live as an openly gay man.
The film – based on the memoir by Abbott’s daughter, Alysia – chronicles Abbott’s life as a poet, novelist, and the AIDS crisis that would engulf San Francisco in the 80s and 90s. Abbott (movingly played by Scoot McNairy) died from complications of the disease in 1992.
Kaufman and Abbott were colleagues at Atlanta’s underground newspaper, The Great Speckled Bird. Kaufman recalled that Abbott was an outspoken anti-Vietnam War activist during his time in the city.
Robison also met Abbott in Atlanta, but said they crossed paths more often once they were both living in San Francisco, and said Alysia (played by Nessa Dougherty and Emilia Jones in the film) was one of many children who led interesting lives in the counterculture.
“One of the greatest differences between then and now is that people like to talk about the gay community in those days, but you can’t really pick it out and isolate it,” Robison recalled. “These days, it’s called intersections, but back then, we just thought of it as liberation. There was so much going on, we had so many facets to their lives – people were involved in politics, arts, drugs, and sex and so on.”
Fontana recalled the formation of the Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance (ALFA) in 1972 to give women more of a voice in the gay rights movement. She said these women were also active in Midtown and Little Five Points and often contributed to The Great Speckled Bird.
Drue, who first came to Atlanta in the mid-1960s, said watching “Fairyland” hit her hard because “we lived through every inch” of the AIDS crisis and lost so many friends and loved ones.
Dave Hayward’s sister, Nancy Bryant, said her brother would be thrilled that so many people turned out for the screening, which he was organizing at the time of his death.
“Touching Up Our Roots was really Dave’s mission. He really wanted people to learn from history and those with lived experience to share their stories, like this panel, with younger people. Dave’s work wasn’t done, and I urge everyone to carry the torch, carry his mission forward.”
Bryant said a “celebration of life” will be held for Hayward after the holidays.
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