Doc Star of the Month: Pat Henschel, 'A Secret Love'

When one thinks of a coming-out story these days, an LGBTQ teenager proudly declaring their identity on Instagram might immediately spring to mind. Which wasn't the case for the two women at the center of Chris Bolan's heartfelt doc A Secret Love, streaming on Netflix starting April 29. 

The film is a decades-spanning portrait of the director's great-aunt Terry Donahue, a member of the women's pro baseball league that inspired the 1992 film A League of Their Own, and Pat Henschel, the hockey player she fell in love with way back in 1947. Over six decades later, facing their mortality and the challenges of aging, the two make the difficult decision to let the entire family in on the fact that they've always been more than just roommates. Which launches the couple into an unfamiliar — though ultimately exhilarating — gay marriage-accepting world.

Though Terry Donahue died in March of 2019 at the age of 93, her nonagenarian wife Pat is still very much alive and speaking out about her life (and the love of her life). And most fortunately for Documentary, she was willing to be featured as April's Doc Star of the Month.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

No exodus: Pray Away

SEXUALITY: Former survivors & leaders of the gay conversion therapy movement contend with its aftermath.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. That aphorism could easily be the tagline for Kristine Stolakis’ debut feature Pray Away, which was selected for this year’s Tribeca Film Festival Documentary Competition. Stolakis, whose work is informed by an eclectic background in anthropology, journalism, politics, and community art, has crafted a fascinating character-centric study of a long-discredited movement that, nevertheless, continues to thrive. This in spite of its founders’ near-religiously zealous efforts to kill it off year after year.

To read my critique visit Modern Times Review.