The Film
This film chronicles the lives of Simone and her fellow LGBTQIA community members in New York City, spanning decades of adversity and resilience. Survivors of the AIDS epidemic and enduring transphobia, they navigate life as women, performers, drag queens, and dancers, embracing self-expression amidst societal challenges. When the COVID-19 pandemic disrupts city life, Simone starts putting on outdoor drag performances at the Stonewall National Monument, hosting Sunday Tea Dances that become a celebrated fixture in the neighborhood, while defying attempts to silence them. Simone and her cohort embody a microcosm of survival, creativity, and the pursuit of beauty amid ongoing struggles. Their story, both remarkable and humbling, reflects a universal desire to live authentically despite adversity. This cut of Queens of Stonewall focuses on Simone of The West Village, whose story is intended to stand on its own as a short doc. The film is in post production, and this edit does not reflect final color or sound.
Featuring interviews with:
Miss Simone of The West Village & Tanya Asapansa-Johnson Walker
and appearances by Mena, Gina, Albert, and Ebony
Producer: Steven Love Menendez
Steven Love Menendez is an award-winning New York City based photographer with a focus on the fine art figurative nude. His decades of work as a Stylist, Fashion Editor, Art Director and vast experience working on photography sets facilitate his work with the fine art medium. He pursued his passion for photography at the International Center of Photography. His evocative fine art portraits have graced the walls of the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, solo exhibitions in New York City, Fire Island, Provincetown and Miami. Accolades such as being named one of the World’s Top 10 Black and White Photographers in 2019 and one of the World’s Top 10 Fine Art Photographers in 2021 by One Eye Land, alongside winning placements in the NUDE Photoshoot awards in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. He received the President’s Medal at the Fire Island Cherry Grove Arts Project show in 2018. His sought-after photographs have been published in The Advocate, Gay Letter, Out Magazine, and The Queer Review, amplifying his vision to a broader audience and to cement his artistic legacy.
Steven’s unrelenting and consistent activism in the LGBTQ+ Community for over 20 years manifests through the idea that Peace, Love, Kindness and Beauty are the most powerful and needed forms of protest. In 2017, Steven created the annual 250 Pride month Rainbow Flag installation at the Stonewall National Monument. In 2019 Steven was pivotal in getting the first permanent flagpole and Rainbow flag installed at the Stonewall National Monument. He petitioned for the first permitted Drag Shows at a National Monument. His activism has been the focus of worldwide media attention for his tireless efforts to elevate the profile of the LGBTQ + Community.
Artist James Bidgood Master of Gay Art photography was quoted writing “I love Steven’s luxurious fusing together of uncontrolled nature and the human form in an equally natural state, adding his splendid vision to what is truly to be treasured about mankind”. Charles Leslie, American art collector, gay rights activist and founder of the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art stands out as a one of his most prominent collectors validating Menendez’s impact within the LGBTQ Art community.
A student of mysticism, spirituality and philosophy for over 30 years, Menendez expresses the tenderness and intimacy of the human form in serene and harmonious settings that bring a sense of peace, introspection and upliftment to the viewer. He believes in the power of art to reflect and shape societal values, striving to transcend conventional perceptions and evoke a deeper understanding of beauty and humanity. His mission through his art and activism is to remind us that once we can remove our metaphorical masks and garments that we can more deeply experience our interconnectedness and oneness with the Universe.
Direction: Jean Sonderand
Jean Sonderand (b. 1991, United States) is a New York based new-media artist, technologist, and filmmaker. Through a fusion of hybrid techniques–including projection mapping, computer generated graphics and animation, synthesized audio, photography, video, film, and performance–their work explores liminal and divergent aspects of human identity and its continuous fracturing through the Anthropocene. Their master’s thesis, The Body is Merely The Apparition of a Framework, was exhibited at the 16th Venice Biennale de Architectura after its premiere at Weinberg Newton Gallery in 2018.
Their work has also appeared at The Shed NYC, Lincoln Center, NYU, and dozens of grassroots art/activist collaborations as a former member of the guerilla projectionist collective The Illuminator. For the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, a solo retrospective of their work was hosted by the Manhattan Borough President at Maggie Peyton Gallery. They are a graduate of William Jewell College in English and Philosophy with a masters degree in Visual Studies from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago, with academic and artistic publications in the collection of the Joan Flasch Artist Book Library. An interview on their life and upbringing was conducted by the Enby Spoken History project and is preserved at the Smithsonian Library for American Folk Arts.
Direction: nick Tyson
Nick Tyson (b. 1991, United States) is a filmmaker, editor and producer based in Paris. His filmmaking practice explores queer embodiment and sensorial experience across physical and digital landscapes, engaging with forms of experimental cinema, observational documentary, and sensory ethnography. His last film “Tracing Utopia” premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2021, and his work has screened at festivals including IndieLisboa, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, BFI Flare, and É Tudo Verdade, as well as at Anthology Film Archives (NY) and La Clef Cinéma (Paris). He is a graduate of Columbia University, and has a masters from the Université Paris-Nanterre in documentary film and visual anthropology. He was part of the UnionDocs Collaborative Studio artist residency from 2019 through 2020. He is a member of L’Etna, a community experimental film and analog laboratory in Montreuil, France, working in 16mm film.