The Out of the Closet and Onto the Screen film series will feature an award-winning documentary on Robert Eads -- a female-to-male transsexual and self-described "hillbilly" who developed ovarian cancer -- on Thursday, April 3, at 7:00 p.m. in Textor 102. Held in conjunction with National LGBT Health Awareness Week, the screening of Southern Comfort is free and open to the public.
Living in the back hills of Georgia, Eads cut a striking figure: sharp-tongued, bearded, with tobacco pipe in hand, he passed as a male so well that the local Ku Klux Klan tried to recruit him as a member. But when Eads was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, he was turned away by more than two dozen doctors who feared that taking on a transgender patient would harm their practice.
Southern Comfort documents the final year of Eads's life, during which time he falls in love with Lola, a male-to-female transsexual, and makes his last appearance at the Southern Comfort Conference in Atlanta, the nation's preeminent transgender gathering. A rare blend of humor, romance and tragedy, the film is an intimate trans-to-trans love story, set against a disturbing tale of gender bias. Southern Comfort won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, first prize at the Seattle International Film Festival, and Special Audience Award at the Berlin Film Festival.
The film series concludes April 15 with a screening of director/producer Josh Aronson's Beautiful Daughters; Aronson will introduce his film and hold a Q&A session about the documentary.
The Out of the Closet and Onto the Screen film series is sponsored by the Ithaca College Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Education, Outreach, and Services. For more information, visit www.ithaca.edu/lgbt.
All screenings are free and open to the public. Look for an announcement of next year's Out of the Closet film series theme soon!
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/2008032917262667