This Thursday the Provincetown Film Society will present a
special screening of Matt Shepard is a
Friend of Mine, a new documentary commemorating the 15th
anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard, the University of Wyoming freshman
who was kidnapped by two homophobic men he had met in a Laramie, Wyoming, bar.
Matt was tortured, tied to a fence and left to die in one of the nations most
notorious hate crimes on record. This vicious crime created headlines worldwide,
and the universal condemnation of this horrendous act of violence started a
crucial dialogue about hate crimes and intolerance toward LGBT people, leading
to the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention
Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2009.
This important 89 minute film, touring nationwide in
theatrical and festival screenings. will be shown in Provincetown one night
only, at 7 PM on Thursday, July 31, 2014, at the Waters Edge Cinema,
on the second floor of Whalers Wharf, at 237 Commercial Street. The
film will be followed by an audience Q&A with Matt’s parents, Judy and
Dennis Shepard, and director Michele Josue. The Q&A will be moderated by
the Rev. Christie Hardwick, a local minister of the Centers for Spiritual
Living. Tickets are $12, with all proceeds benefitting the Matthew Shepard
Foundation. Get tickets online or at the Cinema box office.
Director Michele
Josue was a 19-year-old film school student at Emerson College in Boston
when she learned of the murder of her dear friend in Laramie. She says that
before he “became ‘Matthew Shepard’—his identity forever tied to unspeakable
violence and hate—he was just Matt, a normal kid who happened to be gay, with a
loving family and supportive friends. He was real. And I think it’s important
that the world knows that.”
Watch the trailer for '"Matt Shepard is a Friend of Mine", and see the film this Thursday night at Waters
Edge Cinema.
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