Radical feminism, international vegetarian cuisine, and the search for home in queer community converge at Bloodroot, a space for women four decades in the making. Built on a dead-end space on the edge of the Sound in Connecticut, the humble restaurant/lesbian bookstore might seem an unlikely space to have been written up in The New York Times and visited by the likes of Mary Daly, Audre Lorde, and Andrea Dworkin. But the vision and open arms of owners Selma Miriam and Noel Furie opened the doors widely and boldly in 1977, and they have never shut since.

Whether elucidating on the beauty of a treasured knick-knack or pontificating on open relationships, abortion, and working at the Playboy Mansion, each woman is a warm and welcoming open book sharing her own personal history in the context of the larger women’s movement in US history. The intimate doc is spliced with archival footage of women’s rallies and Betty Friedan’s take on the lavender menace, but ultimately Bloodroot the film, like the space, is inviting and revolutionary because of the adventurous women who are front and center.

— J. SWEMBA