RELATED: Nine Green Bay LGBTQ+ artists discuss their inspirations and the way their creations spread love This is about the community, about me giving back to the city of Green Bay." This is no longer just about me doing artwork. "Then it developed more into doing this for the community, for the Black and brown people in this neighborhood," said Lo, who is Hmong American and noted the Napalese is within a majority minority part of the city. "It became very personal, as well, to my identity as a queer person of color. I love my hometown,” Stephens said.Lo thought the public art project would give him a chance to explore his artwork and celebrate northeastern Wisconsin's LGBTQ+ community. That sort of conflict is inspiring for me to create stories. “It’ll always be home, but I also remember the hard times there. Stephens has also been given the festival’s DReam Catcher award, which recognizes standout LGBTQ+ filmmakers.Įven though the stories are not directly linked, he encourages people to watch his films in chronological order starting with “Edge of 17” to see not only the evolution of the storytelling, but also the evolution Sandusky. “We could not have done the film without the support of that community,” he said. Stephens said it felt like his hometown wrapped its arms around him. And the experience making that film couldn't have been more different,” he said. When I first got there to start preproduction downtown, they were starting the 3rd annual Gay Pride Festival. So that was that was kind of soul crushing in a way,” Stephens said.Ĭut to 2019 when Stephens came back to film “Swan Song,” and it was a different story. It was about affirming who I was, a gay man, yet we as a production like went back into the closet. “It was sort of sad because we were back in my hometown that I hadn't lived in for 12 years, making a film. “When we made my first film, ‘Edge of 17,’ we literally decided to keep the gay subject matter of the film a secret because we felt like people wouldn't help us,” he said.īecause they were shooting a low-budget film they needed a lot of support, be it scouting locations or borrowing props.
Stephens' feelings for his hometown are a combination of love and hatred, of not fitting in, but finding a community all the same. Sandusky has been the backdrop for each film in the Ohio Trilogy. “I was really inspired by him and I always knew I was going to make a film about him, it just took me 20, 25 years to do it,” he said. Pat in “Edge of 17,” but the part never made it in the final film. Stephens initially wrote a character based on Mr. And so, it all just kind of like connected and I just felt like I was home.” Pat, this this guy that I'd seen all my life. “I was petrified the first time I went there, but when I walked in the door, I saw something on the dance floor, kind of sparkling and glittering.
Stephens calls it the most “amazing gay bar in the history of the world, as far as I'm concerned.” When he turned 17, Stephens first walked into the Universal Fruit and Nut Co., a small gay bar near the Cedar Point entrance in Sandusky. “I always felt like I related to Pat because I didn't feel like I fit in either.” And he had all these cocktail rings and smoked like this long brown cigarette that I had never seen before,” he said. “He was just a tiny little man that I would see as a kid walking around downtown wearing like a velvet fedora and a feather boa and women's pantsuits. “(He) was really flamboyant, sort of eccentric character that didn't look like anybody else in town back when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s,” Stephens said.Īt a time when Stephens said there was an overwhelming need to conform, he said Mr. “It's based on a man that I grew up sort of idolizing when I was a kid, and his name was Pat Pitsenbarger,” Stephens said. Just like the first two films in Stephens’ Ohio Trilogy, “Edge of 17” and “Gypsy 83,” “Swan Song” is a coming-of-age story set in Sandusky, except this film trades in youthful revelation for a sense of rediscovery. The fictionalized memoir centers around an older gay man in Stephen’s hometown of Sandusky exploring how life has changed over the decades. It’s taken New York-based filmmaker Todd Stephens 20 years to complete his Ohio Trilogy with the film “Swan Song.” It and the other films in the trilogy are now streaming at this year’s Cleveland International Film Festival.