Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders

Documentary filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz (VITO, I AM DIVINE) peels back the layers of controversy surrounding the making of CRUISING, William Friedkin’s 1980 erotic thriller starring Al Pacino. Friedkin’s story of a serial killer targeting gay men in New York’s leather bars was drawn from the true-life brutal murder of Variety reporter Addison Verrill, blurring the boundaries between cinematic fiction and real-life tragedy. In the summer of 1979, as word traveled in the LGBTQ+ community that a movie was being filmed in the streets of the West Village that linked homosexuality and depravity, all hell broke loose, triggering fierce protests that at times shut-down or delayed production. Long denounced by the queer community, now nearly 50 years later, CRUISING is being revisited in a new and more complex light. Open Captions Available