Matthew J. Palm | Orlando Sentinel
ORLANDO, Fla. — It was 36 hours after the Pulse nightclub massacre of 2016 when Rick Todd decided the history of gay, lesbian and transgender people in Central Florida needed to be told. Sitting in a meeting of LGBTQ leaders reacting to the tragedy, he realized the help that would be forthcoming had its roots in the past.
“Who created this community?” he asked himself. “Who laid this foundation?”
The end result of his questions is the film “Greetings from Queertown: Orlando,” which debuted at the Florida Film Festival on Monday. For Todd, and others, it has been both a personal journey — and an educational one.
“I say I was raised by Orlando’s gay community,” says Todd, the publisher of gay-issues newspaper Watermark and executive producer of the film. “I wanted to honor the people who raised me.”
“Greetings from Queertown” features interviews with notable figures on Central Florida’s LGBTQ scene: City commissioner Patty Sheehan, playwright-actor Michael Wanzie, Headdress Ball founder Sam Ewing and drag performer and former Parliament House entertainment director Darnell Strick aka Darcel Stevens.
They use personal stories to paint a picture of how Orlando has changed over time, starting with the early days when staying in the closet was the norm.
“The community was not welcoming,” says Orlando Gay Chorus co-founder Joel Strack in the film, adding he and others “had to create their own spaces of safety.”
Strack — who paid for the city’s first gay pride parade on his own credit card, Todd said — participated in the movie shortly before he died in 2019, an example of one of the problems moviemakers faced in compiling a historical account.
“One thing I’ve learned, which is sad, is that this should have been done 10 or 15 years ago,” Todd said. “We’ve lost too many people. We were lucky we were able to talk to him, but there were so many we didn’t get to.”
The film, then, has a heavier focus on the 1980s and ‘90s, with first-person accounts more plentiful.
Wanzie recounts an attempted entrapment of him by law enforcement, Ewing gives the back story of the Headdress Ball — which for years raised money for the Hope & Health Center’s fight against HIV and AIDS.
Ewing tearfully explains how he wanted to honor a friend who died from the disease, a story Todd said shares a universal message about how one person’s idea can make a difference: “That single act of kindness turned into something that helped thousands of people and saved thousands of lives.”
Past challenges are recounted: The flap over flying rainbow flags downtown and the Ku Klux Klan hovering around a gay rights rally.
In the early days, “the bars were the only place you could go, and even those would get raided,” Sheehan recalls.
The post-Pulse segment of the film deals with progress — and fears.
“Progress can be taken away, and you have to constantly stand up for your rights,” Todd said.
The difficulties of moviemaking came as a surprise to Todd: “I guess other people knew,” he joked, explaining the usual reaction to his plan was a skeptical “Good luck with that.”
A fundraising campaign brought in some donations, but “not anything close to what was necessary.”
That’s when Adrenaline Films stepped in and offered to co-produce, an offer that Todd credits with finally getting the film made. Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer makes an appearance. Orlando entertainer Ginger Minj, who found national fame on “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” sings an original song titled “City Beautiful” for the credits.
“Everybody involved was very passionate about it,” Todd said.
Although his personal story isn’t part of the documentary, Todd vividly remembers being 16 and the day he looked up Gay and Lesbian Community Services in the phone book, “jumped on a bus and went,” then “paced around the neighborhood tortured someone might see me” before approaching the door — only to discover it was closed.
He later summoned the courage to call, and “the rest of my life just fell into place.”
He hopes that after the film festival “Greetings from Queertown” will find life on streaming services and inspire others to tell their community’s stories — or take comfort in the fact they are not alone.
“When I was 16, I would have loved to have seen something like this,” he said. “It’s a great story of struggle and triumph.”
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