Recommended Reading: Rob Epstein, Will Swenson, stereotypes in cinema, and more!

Broadway Star to Direct Film Version of "Facing East" (NY Times ArtBeat) "Will Swenson, a Tony Award nominee for his performance in 'Hair' (2009) and a star of the new Broadway musical 'Priscilla Queen of the Desert,' will direct an independent film adaptation of Carol Lynn Pearson’s play 'Facing East.' In the play, a Mormon couple grapple with their faith after the suicide of their gay son. Ms. Pearson, whose 1986 memoir, 'Good-bye, I Love You,' told the story of her husband’s struggle to come out as a gay man and his eventual death from AIDS, also wrote the screenplay," writes Rachel Lee Harris of the New York Times arts blog. An unknown portion of the film's profits will benefit The Trevor Project. Rob Epstein on Docs, Reality TV, and Keeping Harvey Alive on Film (Movieline) In this interview, director and documentarian Rob Epstein covers a range of topics relating to his Oscar-winning "The Times of Harvey Milk." Did you know that he started the documentary before Harvey's assassination? Epstein says, "We were looking at what was going on in California, the Briggs Initiative campaign — which was really the first big gay rights battle [had voters approved the initiative, openly gay and lesbian schoolteachers would have lost their jobs] — and I was interested in telling that story, and through telling that story I saw that Harvey Milk was really the embodiment of everything I was going for in that other story." Women, Gay and Black People Still Shown as Stereotypes in Film (Guardian.co.uk) The largest-ever study of its kind revealed that audiences believe the film industry perpetuates negative stereotypes about race, gender, and sexuality. Amelia Hill of The Guardian writes, "Of 4,315 adults across the UK who were surveyed, a clear majority believe cinema too often falls back on discredited stereotypes, including sexless older women, drug dealing, oversexualized black people and gay people whose lives are dominated by their sexuality." A Gay Cult Classic Re-Emerges (NY Times Magazine) "'It’s like I survived a train wreck and everybody else died and my name is associated with that disaster,' says James Bidgood of his first and last film, 'Pink Narcissus,' a 1971 erotic fantasia that contrasts a hustler’s satin reveries with sordid reality. On March 21, it will be shown at the IFC Center in New York as part of 'Queer/Art/Film.' Bidgood, 77, is debating whether or not to go. 'I can’t look at it.' 'Pink Narcissus' may be a benchmark of underground gay cinema, but for decades its director was forgotten. Rumors circulated that the film was by Andy Warhol or Kenneth Anger. Bidgood didn’t get any credit and didn’t want any. It was the making and unmaking of his artistic career." Read more about this mysterious film and the artist's process!