QFest Celebrates Gay Pride Month With Movie Screening In Asbury Park

The ShowRoom Cinema and QSpot LGBT Community Center invite you to celebrate Gay Pride Month with a one-night only screening of Gregg Araki's film THE LIVING END, on Sun., June 19 at 7:30pm. The event marks the celebration of 30 years of New Queer Cinema, and QSpot's re-launch of QFest, NJ's only LGBT Film Festival. A portion of the event proceeds will go towards supporting QFest.

Partially a visceral response to a time when the AIDS crisis was devastating the gay community, and the powers that be were slow to respond, THE LIVING END, dubbed a "gay Thelma & Louise," follows two young HIV-positive men, one a hustler, the other a film critic, on a free-wheeling, nihilistic road trip.

Long before Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain" or Gus Van Sant's "Milk" would garner Oscar consideration, films like POISON (1991), RSVP (1991), YOUNG SOUL REBELS (1991), EDWARD II (1991), SWOON (1992) and Araki's THE LIVING END (1992), burst onto the scene with a freshness and drive that woke the world to the rich trove of subject matter and innovation that is the LGBTQ+ experience. In 1992, scholar B. Ruby Rich coined the term New Queer Cinema in response to these films, which shed light on lives and issues that were largely unknown in the cultural landscape of the time.

The ShowRoom Cinema, Asbury Park's independent movie theater, is located at 707 Cookman Ave., Asbury Park. For more information about THE LIVING END screening, visit Showroomcinemas.com, or contact Jeff Lundenberger at (732) 245-0190. For information about QFest, please visit QSpot.org.