Fighting in Southwest Louisiana
Peter Friedman • 27m
Directed by Peter Friedma, JF Brunet • Documentary • With Danny Cooper, Ben Royal • 1992 • 27 minutes
A portrait of Danny Cooper, a mailman in the rural American South who has been openly gay since high school in the middle of “redneck” country. Modest and self-effacing, when asked how he finds the courage, he shrugs, smiles his impish smile and says “People respect you if you respect yourself.” He went from being the only gay person in the region (except for his lover) to being the only HIV positive one, his home becoming known among the locals as “the AIDS house”. Danny is a real charmer, an uneducated local boy with an astonishing yet unassuming sophistication, and a role model for gay people and people with HIV everywhere.
"FIGHTING IN SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA pops our balloons of urban chauvinism...it makes a strong case for coming out, for being yourself." —Mark Finch, British Film Institute
Up Next in Peter Friedman
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I Talk to Animals
Directed by Peter Friedman • Documentary • With Samantha Khury • 1990 • 54 minutes
Samantha is an "animal therapist and psychic" who has convinced skeptical pet owners, zoo keepers, and race horse trainers that she really can "talk" to their animals. Here we see her at work counselling race hors...
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The Life and Times of Life and Times
Directed by Peter Friedman, JF Brunet • Documentary • With Elizabeth Blackburn, Leonard Hayflick, Michael Rose, Cynthia Kenyon, Francois Schachter, Alain Prochiantz • 1998 • 59 minutes
Why do we age? Do we wear out piece by piece like an old car? Or do our genes determine our lifespan? Scientis...
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MANA - Beyond Belief
Directed by Peter Friedman, Roger Manley • Documentary • 2005 • 92 minutes
MANA - Beyond Belief is a journey from a Navajo medicine man’s mud-covered hogan to the eternity of outer space, from the most ancient of technologies to the most complex, from the concrete world of objects to the abstrac...
