JOY! Portrait of a Nun

JOY! Portrait of a Nun, dir. Joe Balass, 2012, Canada, 52 min. 
24 Hitchhikers, dir. Paul Detwiler, 2013, USA, 5 min. 
Sunday, June 23, 1:30 pm @ Victoria

Sister Mish in a state of JOY!

(Disclaimer: I am an acquaintance of Sister Mish, and a friend of several other people involved in this project.) Sister Soami Deluxe (originally Sister Missionary Position, later Sister Missionary P. Delight) is one of the founders of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group that has done activism, charity, and consciousness-raising for over three decades. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence push back against the oppression of the Roman Catholic Church, and particularly its dour, sexually repressed asceticism, preaching instead a gospel of happiness, sexual liberation, and expiation of stigmatic guilt. JOY! Portrait of a Nun takes a look at Sister Mish and many of her fellow Sisters, radical faeries, elves, and other assorted woodland creatures, distilling seven years of interviews, archival footage, and memorabilia, into a moving and fascinating portrait of a pivotal figure in the history of San Francisco and the entire gay world. Highly recommended, definitely a Must See — although, of course, you are absolved of any stigmatic guilt if you don’t manage to see it.

Thumbing a ride

24 Hitchhikers is a brief short that screened with JOY! Portrait of a Nun. A closeted U.S. government official liked to pick up hitchhikers on his weekly commute along the California coast, back in the 1960’s and 70’s, sometimes taking photos of the attractive young men he met and occasionally took home with him. Director Paul Detwiler assembled those portraits into an interesting and erotically charged stroll down the roadside of Memory Lane. Well worth seeing, Highly Recommended.

• JOY! IMDb page with trailer • Facebook page
• 24 Hitchhikers IMDb page