Claiming the Title: Gay Olympics on Trial

 

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Synopsis:

In 1982, an athletic group tries to hold a “Gay Olympics,” instigating what will ultimately become a battle at the U.S. Supreme Court and a challenge over the place of gays and lesbians in American society.

The Supreme Court is widely viewed as the country’s chief defender of civil rights. Yet its long-hidden struggle with demands for gay equality points to a more complicated reality. The inner workings of the Court are exposed, revealing an institution and individual justices — real people with human emotions and deeply felt assumptions — divided and in conflict.

Former Olympian Dr. Tom Waddell founds the Gay Olympic Games, an international sporting event meant to nurture a healthy self-image for gays and lesbians while publicly affirming positive examples of homosexuality. The U.S. Olympic Committee, however, doesn’t want the words “gay” and “Olympics” combined. Despite a long history of disparate groups adopting the Olympic moniker — from Special Olympics and Police Olympics to the Xerox Olympics, Crab Cooking Olympics and even the Rat Olympics — the USOC sues to stop the event. The gay group, led by attorney Mary Dunlap, fights through losses at every level of the judiciary until turning to the high court is the last option.

Their pursuit turns out to be the opening salvo in the next decade’s major gay rights battles at the Supreme Court — and a preview of a conflict that continues to split society to this day.

http://www.claimingthetitle.com

 

Produced, Directed and Written by Jonathan Joiner and Robert Martin
Cinematographer Sinisa Kukic
Aquarius Media, 2009, Country: USA

Jonathan Joiner: Director, Producer, Writer
CLAIMING THE TITLE is the first professional film made by San Francisco directing team Jonathan Joiner and Robert H. Martin. Jonathan and Robert met in line at the movies — a festival screening at San Francisco’s famed Castro Theatre movie palace more than 15 years ago. They share a passion for film, an interest in politics and social activism and a commitment to civil and human rights.

Jonathan Joiner (Producer/Director) is an attorney with a longstanding interest in LGBT rights. Born and raised in Florence, Alabama, he has a commitment to social justice that is informed not just by his experience as a gay man, but through direct exposure to the legacy of segregation in the American South.

Jonathan moved to California in the early 90s and has spent the last 17 years in San Francisco. He was deputy director of the H.I.V./AIDS Reentry and Empowerment Project at New College of California, where he earned his J.D. A personal passion for film and film history has driven Jonathan’s interest in copyright and intellectual property law, including the theory and application of fair use doctrine in documentary filmmaking. A former student of the Bay Area Video Coalition’s video production program, he is a skilled still photographer whose practical experience with lighting, composition and color informs his filmmaking.

Robert Martin (Producer/Director) is a nonprofit management consultant with a passion for politics and longstanding dedication to community improvement. He has worked more than a decade as a communications and strategy consultant for nonprofit organizations and foundations in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

Exposed to filmmaking through his dad’s Super 8 home movies, Robert produced his first film in high school: a documentary exposé triggered by the drug-related arrests of 18 students by an undercover police officer who had posed as an enrolled student. Robert is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Reed College, and has completed video production coursework at Portland’s Northwest Film Center and the Bay Area Video Coalition.