Wolfe announced this past week that the documentary filmmaking team of Jen Rainin and Rivkah Beth Medow’s Ahead of the Curve, an award-winning look at the career of activist/publisher Frances “Franco” Stevens and the founding of first Deneuve and then Curve Magazine, will be making its DVD debut on June 01.
Born of privilege, Frances Rene Goldberg had it all. A Jewish princess, she got an elaborate wedding — an event — at just 18-years of age. The marriage last about three years and then she came out of the closet in 1989. That did not sit well with her family, who cut her off … in no time, she was living on the streets of San Francisco, homeless.
It is 1990 and Frances had an idea. It doesn’t matter how down on your luck you are, if you have an idea in the right place, at the right time, it can become a force of nature.
You can’t make this stuff up, this is true-life documentary on her life, and once you’ve gone from Jewish princess to being divorced to coming out as gay and to being disowned by your family, you get creative in order to survive.
First thing, get off the streets, get moving. She landed a job at The Different Light Bookstore in San Francisco and began to network with the local writers and it was at this time that she came up with the idea for the first out-and-out Lesbian-themed magazine.
There was just one problem. The idea that she had come up with needed funding and no one would step up. However, Frances had a gift, a way with the ponies and that would be her ticket to financing her start-up operation.
It was a simple plan, apply for every credit card she could think of, max them out and head to the track … Deneuve, the magazine, was born!!
A self-style promoter, street-smarts and with a relentless drive, Frances/Franco took to the road … if there was a festival, she was there, if there was an interview opportunity, she took it … she was making a go of it.
Now, if you know a little of the history, you know what came next. Does the name Catherine Deneuve ring any bells? She used her celebrity, along with a fleet of high-powered lawyers to body-slam Franco and her Deneuve magazine. She rolled with the punches and reinvented herself once again … a survivor, surviving.
In this well-crafted documentary, filmmakers Rainin and Medow give us the backstory and bring us up to the present day where new challenges face Franco … tough times, touch choices, but considering how far she has come and how much she has accomplished, you can’t help but get the feeling that this is just one more challenge to overcome.
Bonus features include extended interviews with Franco Stevens, along with activists and supports, Melissa Etheridge, Lea DeLaria and Jewelle Gomez.
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