Upcoming documentary highlights the history of New London’s … – Hartford Courant

Constance Kristofik found a welcoming community in New London when she moved there in 2006.

Kristofik founded OutCT/New London Pride to help strengthen that community, while also being able to indulge her longtime interest in historical preservation as the executive director of New London Landmarks.

She left that role to become a prospects research specialist for the Lifespan Medical System in Rhode Island, but still volunteers for New London Landmarks and remains active in the LGBTQ community. Now, she has made a documentary that combines many of these interests.

“Holding Space for Each Other: New London’s LGBTQ+ Community” has been in the works for the past two years. It may be nearly another year before most people can see it, but it’s worth the wait.

At the start of the film, New London is described as “a small riverfront city which celebrates its diversity and where the LGBTQ community has had a visible presence for over 60 years.”

The film began when New London Landmarks asked Kristofik to put together a walking tour of the sites of historic gay bars in the city. She decided that there’s more LGBTQ history to New London than the gay bars and expanded the scope of the concept until it became a full-length documentary. She didn’t know what shape the film would ultimately take until she had done most of the interviews and research.

Kristofik was able to construct a narrative that is both chronological and theme-oriented. The documentary finds connections between the LGBTQ community, the local peace organizations of the ‘60s and the thriving New London arts and music scenes. The 1960s explores the peace movement and the burgeoning local LGBTQ scene, the 1970s is largely concerned with club life, the ‘80s with AIDS, the ‘90s with the arts and the last 20 years with local politics, religion and small businesses, showing the continual growth and evolution of the community.

It honors such legendary local hotspots as the Hygienic (in its original incarnation as a diner and boarding house) and Frank’s Place (one of the first gay bars in the area). It highlights the city’s first gay mayor, Daryl Finzio, who served from 2011-15 and talks about how “personally rewarding” it was to be invited to march in the New London Irish Parade on St. Patrick’s Day, which traditionally had barred LGBTQ+ participation.

City councilor Curtis K. Goodwin, who also serves as the documentary’s narrator, notes that “I’m a gay Black male. It continues to be a struggle because there’s not that many of us in politics.”

There is a section of “Holding Space for Each Other” devoted to welcoming and affirming churches, and another about the AIDS health crises of the 1980s. All of the issues are conveyed through hyperlocal New London anecdotes, many being shared publicly for the first time.

Kristofik is in her final week of editing the film, which runs about 85 minutes long. When it’s done, she will submit it to film festivals, including several in Connecticut. At the end of this year, “Holding Space for Each Other” will be posted for free online courtesy of New London Landmarks. The film was funded with grants from Connecticut Humanities and the State Historic Preservation Office, as well as many local sponsorships and individual donations, including a considerable investment from Kristofik herself.

One of the things “Holding Space for Each Other” is especially good at is taking national LGBTQ issues and milestones and connecting them to New London, which often reacted in its own small-city way to the changes. The peace movement, for example, coalesced around the building of the Polaris submarine.

One of the interviews is with Ric Silver, a dancer and choreographer credited with creating “The Electric Slide.” He happened to be at the Stonewall Inn in New York on June 28, 1969, when patrons’ reactions to police raids fomented the gay liberation movement. After quickly discussing his memories of that night, Silver switches to talking about the opening of the Corral bar in New London in the mid-1960s, which he says was “the first time New London had a big gay bar, and it was always packed.”

The film lists over a dozen LGBTQ bars from the 1960s to the present, including The Corral, Hey Jude’s, Faces, Mixed Nuts, Heroes and O’Neill’s Brass Rail. Owners, performers and clients of some of those places remember community-building awards ceremonies and softball teams hosted by the bars, but they also recall harassment by local police and neighboring towns. One bar had a code to alert those from the naval base if the doormen suspected that agents of the Naval Investigative Service (“the branch of the Navy that was busting gay people,” as Presley puts it) were approaching.

Some of the film’s story is nostalgic, about Committee for Non-Violent Action meetings at the old Hygienic restaurant, a beloved diner whose name lives on as an artists collective, various social actions in the 1960s and the growth of the LGBTQ community. Organizers of some of the peace movements saw that embracing the community “was a really important part of our being holistic in our approach to relationships and to changing the world,” says Joanne Sheehan of the War Resisters League in the film.

The milestones Kristofik highlights often weren’t covered in the local or mainstream media, so she had to do a lot of original research.

“Mostly, it’s an oral history,” she says, encompassing 20 interviews with activists, artists, bar owners, politicians and others. But she also uncovered an impressive amount of film footage of marches, gatherings and club nights at legendary gay bars like Frank’s Place. “Oh, my god, I just lucked out,” Kristofik says. “The club owners I was interviewing gave me all these VHS tapes that I just converted.”

Xavier Day, co-chair of the New London Pride Festival and former bartender at the Brass Rail, one of the longest-lasting gay bars in the city, is one of the central voices of the film. He smoothly connects the community and historical aspects of the film with his lively take on the scene.

“It was really hard to shortlist the interviews, but there was so much to cover,” Kristofik says. “I look at this as a sampling. I really could have done a miniseries.”

A trailer for “Holding Space for Each Other” can be found at youtube.com/@newlondonlandmarksinformat2069/videos. The completed film will available by the end of the year.

Reach reporter Christopher Arnott at carnott@courant.com.

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