Riding the Gay New Wave into New Queer Cinema: Revealing the Contexts that Created a Movemen

"Riding the Gay New Wave into New Queer Cinema: Revealing the Contexts that Created a Movement," explores the pre-history and formation of the most recognized LGBTQ cinema movement, New Queer Cinema (NQC). NQC refers to a group of aesthetically innovative films, released starting in 1991, that contain explicitly queer content. Counter to the dominant conception of the movement, this research reveals that NQC was not the sudden, isolated product of a few charismatic directors. Rather, the phenomenon of NQC was produced through a combination of early 1990s influences and long-term developments in LGBTQ filmmaking. The early 1990s did provide crucial components that sparked the formation of a movement---recognition from high-profile film festivals, a political atmosphere that placed emphasis on queer art, the intervention of a renowned critic, and attention from well-funded production and distribution companies. But NQC occurred as a result of a decade-long effort on the part of non-profit funding institutions, distributors, festivals, critics, and filmmakers to develop a well-defined audience and accessible market, distinct industrial opportunities, and effective language for framing the movement and its importance. This dissertation approaches NQC from the perspective of historical, industry analysis and charts the remarkable growth, from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, of production, distribution, and exhibition opportunities for LGBTQ films. By emphasizing previously under-explored figures and institutions, this history provides a more complete explanation as to why the movement emerged when it did. This work nuances our understanding of both the myriad forces influencing LGBTQ cinema in the 1980s and 1990s and the factors that shape the formation of film movements more generally. The aesthetic distance between 1980s gay and lesbian films and NQC films isolated them from each other, but in reality they were intimately connected, with earlier films laying the foundations for what followed.