Bressan, Jr., including his landmark 1978 documentary Gay USA, chronicling the LGBTQ rights movement, and the wrenching 1985 drama Buddies, the first feature film to tackle the AIDS crisis.īressan himself succumbed to complications related to AIDS in 1987, following a prolific period in which the native New Yorker directed ten films in ten years. For several years, Olson and the Bressan Project have worked to restore the films of pioneering gay filmmaker Arthur J. The journey down the virtual video aisles of streaming platform PinkLabelTV began with a message from Jenni Olson, filmmaker, film historian, and co-director of the Bressan Project. I masked and distanced, marched and protested, hiked through a forest and laid on a beach. I mourned a death in the family, along with the deaths of many I didn’t know. I also worked from home, at seemingly all hours, and tried to keep up with the world’s deluge of conflict and disruption. I didn’t just watch porn all summer, of course, but I watched more porn than usual. Perhaps there are those who’d decline or scoff at the opportunity. Wakefield Poole’s “Boys in the Sand” - Vintage Gay Adult FilmsĪt some point during the quarantine, a well-curated adult entertainment website approached me, offering access to peruse their voluminous catalog.