“Pride in Memory” Red-Carpet Fundraiser at the Last Picture House -- April 28.
Sunday, April 28, 5 p.m.
The Last Picture House, 325 East Second Street, Davenport IA
With the April 28 event hosted by Quad Cities Pride in Memory, Inc., audiences are invited to Davenport venue The Last Picture House for an exciting and important red-carpet fundraiser for Our Story: Pride in Memory, a forthcoming documentary, currently in production, by Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Kelly and Tammy Rundle of Moline's Fourth Wall Films,
Our Story: Pride in Memory is being designed to shed a light on the untold history of the Illinois-Iowa Quad Cities’ LGBTQ+ community. From the guarded 1950s, AIDS, and gay marriage to current attempts to roll back LGBTQ+ rights, the film reveals the story of a personal and local civil rights movement. This new documentary features the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ residents through illuminating on-camera interviews, and combines them with compelling archival images and film footage to tell an inspiring story of struggle, achievement, and pride.
“To us, this is another important Civil Rights story that needs to be preserved and told,” said Kelly Rundle. “Every American deserves the right to be treated equally under the law.” The Rundles have produced more than 20 award-winning documentary films over the past two decades, and their Our Story project has received a production grant from Illinois Humanities.
Established in 2021, Quad Cities Pride in Memory, Inc.’s mission is to document, protect and preserve LGBTQ+ history in the greater Illinois-Iowa Quad Cities area, and to educate the public regarding that history and its significance. To date, the 501 c3 non-profit has conducted more than 40 oral history video or audio interviews with key historical figures in the Quad Cities LGBTQ+ community, and collected printed materials and artifacts for a permanent archive at the Putnam Museum & Science Center.
QCPIM has collaborated with Augustana College students (in queer theory, theatre arts, and filmmaking studies) along with gender studies and geography faculty members. A portable historical panel display focused on LGBTQ+ history in the Quad Cities has been created. In addition to the Pride In Memory documentary project, QCPIM is working to create and launch a clickable map-based Web site that will allow access to interviews and images of artifacts for research purposes.
“We must tell our stories now more than ever," said Reverend Rich Hendricks, Chair of the QCPIM Executive Committee. :First, to preserve them for history before they disappear. Second, because we are experiencing an unprecedented amount of legislative and social persecution in the LGBTQ+ community today and people need to be inspired again about equality for all. Now we have this fabulous collaboration with award-winning Fourth Wall Films, but we need the community’s help to make it happen.”
The Pride in Memory Red Carpet Film Fundraiser will be held on April 28, with heavy hors d'oeuvres and a cash available at 6 p.m. A sneak peek at clips from Our Story: Pride in Memory with a subsequent Q&A begins at 7 p.m., followed by a special showing of the Oscar-nominated film How to Survive a Plague. QCPIM member Sara Meyer said about the feature film: “We have a ‘plague’ of hate taking place today, and we can learn a lot from the ways our community survived and overcame the HIV/AIDS crisis of the ‘80s and ‘90s.”
Tickets for the event are $50, and more information and reservations are available by visiting PrideInMemoryMovie.com.
