CAMPFIRE - 2023

a narrative/documentary hybrid film (17 mins)

starring: Mark Rowe, Brian Keane

director/producer/writer: Austin Bunn

cinematographer: Rand Rosenberg

executive producers: Jamie Heidt, George Hoxworth, Doug Stephen, Wayne Mitteer

WATCH IT: SHORT OF THE WEEK

DEKKOO (streaming service)

SYNOPSIS: A middle-aged, married farmer ventures to a gay campground in search of his long-long love — and discovers the past isn’t done with him yet.

BACKGROUND: There are thirty-some LGBT campgrounds in America and more every year, a phenomenon that started in the 1980s at the height of the AIDS epidemic as refuges for urban gay men and as meeting places for rural (sometimes closeted) men from conservative areas.

In the summer of 2022, I decided to make a documentary about one of the oldest gay campgrounds, Hillside, located in the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania, exploring how campgrounds help heal an estrangement between urban gay culture and nature. As a former Boy Scout, I’d been myself many times. Hillside is special. But after weeks of interviewing, I ran into some unexpected obstacles – foremost, that some men risked exposure in speaking to me and many prized their privacy (Hillside has a long-standing “no cameras” policy). I had a number of interviews, but was a stuck when it came to a central “story”.

Then, out of the blue, I got a phone call from a man who introduced himself as a friend of my father’s when they served in the Air Force together, on a classified base in the late 1950s. He had just read my father’s obituary (he died in 2018), and he told me that he and my father had been lovers for two years, in secret. Now that he was 83 years old, he just wanted someone to know.

In his book Austerlitz, W.G. Sebald says, “It seems to me that all the moments of our life occupy the same space, as if future events already exist and...are just waiting for us to make our way to them. Might it be that we also have appointments in the past?”

Campfire is about one of those appointments in the past.

The film unfolds in the real place, on an actual weekend, blended with interview material. The film features six “perms” (resident campers and non-actors) and two professional actors, along with dozens of Hillside campers as extras.

FILM FESTIVAL SCREENINGS:

Cleveland International Film Festival — Winner, Best LGBT Short Film; Jim Thorpe Film Festival, Jim Thorpe (PA) — Winner, Best LGBT Short Film; “Out Here: 3 Films About Rural LGBT Life” (Ithaca, NY); Hillside Campground (New Milford, PA); DeadCenter Film Festival (Oklahoma City, OK); South Side Film Festival (Bethlehem, PA); Berkshire International Film Festival (Great Barrington, MA); Provincetown Film Festival (Provincetown, MA) — Winner, Best Queer Short) – Academy Qualifying; OutSouth Queer Film Festival (Durham, NC); Sidewalk Film Festival (AL); Woodstock Film Festival (NY); Reeling Film Festival (Chicago, IL); Out On Film (Atlanta, GA); Cinema Diverse, Palm Springs Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (CA); “Out Here: 3 Films About Rural LGBT Life,” campus screening GVSU (Grand Rapids, MI); Santa Fe Film Festival (NM); Seattle Queer Film Festival (WA)