Special Screening of: Lesbians Free Everyone

LESBIANS FREE EVERYONE – The Beijing Retrospective
A 57min Film by Dr. Bev Palesa Ditsie
Produced by Ditsie Media, Kaleidoscope International Fund and Outright Action
International

25 years ago, during the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, filmmaker and activist Dr. Bev Palesa Ditsie, then Co-Chair of GLOW (Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the Witwatersrand) delivered a historical statement for lesbians on behalf of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and over 50 international Organisations.

In 2020, during the global lockdown, Ditsie engaged online with some of the most incredible activists from around the world who were behind this campaign, not only to walk down memory lane, but to commemorate what will forever be known as the most successful lesbian visibility campaign in herstory.

This film has been created entirely online over the 5 months of lockdown. Ditsie says her biggest challenge was accessing all the necessary footage to compile the film..

With the majority of institutions having shut down, from universities, private and public archives many of the participants sent their personal archives to help the film come together. This film is long overdue, but couldn’t come at a better time as the world grapples with COVID-19, poverty, sexual violence and femicide as well as rising fascism globally.

“While lockdown has been stressful in every way, I was blessed to have the opportunity to also do what I love, what I was born to do,” Ditsie says. 25 years since the largest gathering of women at the World Conference on Women, the questions the film asks include, what happened then? How far have we come and what more needs to be done to see the true emancipation of women in all aspects of our lives.

Ditsie spoke to over 20 lesbian and sexual rights activists from around the world. “The timing was perfect because I wouldn’t have been able to talk to everyone I spoke to in the way that I did,” she said.