AUDIBLE LISTENING PITCH AWARD - Aesthetica Film Festival | AUDIENCE AWARD - Long Beach QFilm Festival
Lesbian History • Women's History • Queer History • Herstory • Sexuality • Gender • Lesbians • Queerness • Aging • Archiving • Activism • Coming Out • Love & Relationships • Death & Dying
Date of Completion: 2023 | Run Time: 29 minutes | Language: English with English subtitles | Captions: Yes | Includes: Transcript & Discussion Guide (Available Upon Purchase) | Director & Editor: Meghan McDonough | Producer: Stevie Borrello | Cinematography: Cassie Coker & Rengim Mutevellioglu | Art Director: Marcie LaCerte | Creative Director: Rengim Mutevellioglu | Animation: Marcie LaCerte & Dani Nunes | Sound Design & Composition: Tori Abreu dos Santos
For the last quarter century, retired schoolteacher Arden Eversmeyer journeyed from Houston across the country to record hundreds of oral "herstories" with a mostly invisible population that is rapidly disappearing. OLD LESBIANS honors Arden's legacy by animating the resilient, joyful voices she preserved in the Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project, from first crush to first love, from the closet to coming out, and finally from loss to connection.
NBC News
"'Old Lesbians' documentary highlights the importance of recording 'herstory'"
GLAAD
"McDonough skillfully weaves together interviews and archival footage to paint a vivid picture of Eversmeyer’s vision and the collective mission of LOAF: to provide a space for older lesbians to connect, share their stories, and find affirmation in their identities...This truth underscores the challenges these ‘old lesbians faced in finding one’s identity amidst societal silence and stigma. Yet, amidst these struggles, the film doesn’t forget to celebrate moments of love and longing, capturing the essence of queer desire with raw honesty and vulnerability."
Texas Woman's University | Dr. Agatha Beins, Program Lead, Multicultural Women’s and Gender Studies Program, Films for the Feminist Classroom
Bringing Lesbian Herstory to Life: A Discussion with Filmmakers Meghan McDonough and Rengim Mutevellioglu
Aeon
"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."
Hyperallergic
"The “Old Lesbians” documentary paints a portrait of [Arden] Eversmeyer and her fellow self-proclaimed old lesbian community through an assemblage of video interviews, stop-motion animated collages constructed from archival materials, and digitized OLOHP oral stories from the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College in Massachusetts."
AWARDS
Listening Pitch Award | Aesthetica Short Film Festival
Audience Award | London Lesbian Film Festival
Audience Award | Long Beach QFilm Festival
FILM FESTIVALS
BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival
Palm Springs ShortFest
Melbourne Documentary Film Festival
Indy Shorts International Film Festival
GAZE International LGBTQIA Film Festival
OUTSOUTH Queer Film Festival
Circa: Queer Histories Festival
Wicked Queer: Docs
Seattle Queer Film Festival
Out Film CT
SCREENINGS
California State Capitol
The American LGBTQ+ Museum and The Center
Old Lesbians was included on the International Documentary Association’s 2024 Best Short Documentary Shortlist, selected from 700+ entries by independent committees of 300 documentary makers, curators, critics, and industry experts from 40+ countries.