LGBT history is full of brilliance and beauty, and shadows too, the darkest being the AIDS epidemic, which claimed over 18,500 San Franciscans between the 1980s and 2000. What if AIDS never happened? What if queer heroes had lived? Who would we be? Leo Herrera, a Mexican/ American activist and filmmaker, in collaboration with queer artists and the GLBT Historical Museum, imagines that parallel universe with The Fathers Project, a “sci-fi documentary” that he likens to a mix of Cruising, Black Mirror, and Beyoncé’s Lemonade. If that description doesn’t get your pulse racing, see a doctor. Herrera’s interest in LGBT history started at a young age. After his family left Ascensión, Mexico for Phoenix, Arizona, he quickly found that his new home wasn’t an easy place to be a gay immigrant. Herrera found solace in gay bookstores, where he tore through queer biographies and became enamored with the 1970s Gay Liberation movement. This passion exploded when he and his gay brother moved to San Francisco’s Mission district and found their own tribe of brown people, queers, drag queens, and others. “We were just like, ‘I can’t believe we get to live this life!’ We knew how much sacrifice our family made to come over here, so me and my brother were going to enjoy the sh*t out of it and work really hard, and that’s where all the film stuff happened.” Herrera’s latest piece imagines lost heroes like Robert Mapplethorpe and Keith Haring as they would be today (a process that Herrera found therapeutic and akin to talking to ghosts), and quilts together glimpses of a queer utopia populated by real people at Pride in San Francisco, and in Provincetown and Fire Island in the summer. Herrera hopes that the final product serves as an antidote to fear. “The world we live in was shaped by [AIDS], but we’re still okay. We’re going to be good. Being able to document this incredible community has been just beautiful. I love it so much. [It’s what] makes me get up. I love it. I love it.”

Be the first to comment