COMING OUT UNDER FIRE

In 1993, the controversy over the military's ban on homosexuals erupted into a national crisis. For many Americans, this issue seemed to come out of nowhere. COMING OUT UNDER FIRE goes to the World War II origins of today's “don't ask, don't tell” orders to uncover the history of a military policy which labelled homosexuals as mentally ill and sought their discharge as “undesirables”. Based on the critically acclaimed, award-winning book by Allan Berube, the film focuses on first-person testimonies of nine gay and lesbian vetrans who recount how they joined the patriotic fight against fascism in the 1940s, only to be rounded up in witch hunts, locked up in “queer stockades”,and stigmatized as “sex perverts” by the very country they were serving. These powerful interviews are combined with an array of declassified documents, photographs, and rare archival footage of medical examinations, psyshiatric sessions, boot camp training, and sex education lectures. Winner of a Special Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival and a Teddy Award for Best Gay/Lesbian Documentary at the Berlin Film Festival.