JULIO DOCUMENTARY

Special Screening of JULIO OF JACKSON HEIGHTS – 2016

Date: March 3rd, 2024
Time: 2:30 pm.
Price: FREE 
Location: In person at Kingsland Homestead, 143-35 37th Avenue

Get Tickets Here

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The story of Julio Rivera by documentary filmmaker Richard Shpuntoff.

Bronx-born Puerto Rican Julio Rivera was murdered in a schoolyard in Jackson Heights, Queens on July 2, 1990, by three young men looking to “clean up” their neighbourhood, but instead the murder sparked the coming out of New York’s largest and until then most closeted LGBTQ community.

JULIO OF JACKSON HEIGHTS is the story of how all this changed. It is the story of how a handful of people – Julio’s friends and family – decided that they would not accept the official police report, and learned how to organize, ultimately bringing their case to the attention of then NYC Mayor Dinkins.

The movement has given birth to dozens of LGBTQ organizations and advocacy groups, the Queens Pride Parade which was the first LGBTQ pride parade in one of the “outer” boroughs of New York City, and ultimately it served as the platform for electing Queens’ first two openly gay candidates to the New York City Council.