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Since creating the Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project in 1998, Arden Eversmeyer has travelled across the US to collect more than 800 stories of lesbian women over the age of 70, as told in their own words. She considers the project an endeavour to gather these stories before they’re lost to time, as well as to help destigmatise and reclaim the words ‘old’ and ‘lesbian’. This short documentary from the US filmmaker Meghan McDonough explores Eversmeyer’s decades-spanning work chronicling the experiences of these women, and pairs intertwining fragments of their stories with lively animations.
From women who hid their true selves during unhappy marriages to men, to women who quietly carried on long-term, same-sex partnerships to avoid the consequences of being open, to one woman whose first crush was on the Statue of Liberty, each story contains its own distinct contours. However, they often overlap in some notable ways, including the interviewees’ understanding that there was something different about them early in life; the difficult experience of coming of age before being gay was widely accepted in the US; and the joy of finally becoming comfortable with their identity.
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Childhood and adolescence
The police camp where tween girls enter a sisterhood of law and order
28 minutes
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Astronomy
The remarkable innovations inspired by our need to know the night sky
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Knowledge
Why it takes more than a lifetime to truly understand a single meadow
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War and peace
‘She is living on in many hearts’ – Otto Frank on the legacy of his daughter’s diary
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Art
Why Diego Velázquez needed a lifetime to paint his enigmatic masterpiece
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Technology and the self
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Family life
The stream-of-consciousness thoughts and memories that emerge while cooking a meal
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Film and visual culture
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Family life
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