Regarding Susan Sontag
Nancy D. Kates
»She was the indispensable voice of moral responsibility, perceptual clarity, passionate advocacy for social justice. Sontag took it as a given that our duty as sentient beings is to rescue the world.«
– Gary Indiana
Susan Sontag (1933-2004) was an essayist and writer, activist and theorist as well as a pop culture celebrity. Controversial, intellectual, passionate, empathetic, combative, and always dedicated to her work. Her writing on photography and war reporting, cancer and AIDS, and not least film and cinema, is legendary. She went to university at 15, at 17 married her professor, gave birth to her son David Rieff at 19, and at 24 left him with his grandparents to go and study in Oxford and Paris. For many years until her death she was the partner of photographer Annie Leibovitz. Sontag wrote 17 books, engaged in public debates about the Vietnam War and 9/11, and took popular culture as seriously as high culture. Before her death, the latter seemed to her to be an endangered species.
In carefully selected archive footage and interviews with all of Sontag’s important friends, colleagues, and lovers, Regarding Susan Sontag traces the life of a literary, political and feminist icon of her generation. The film covers everything from her early love of books and her desire for serious debate to her first experiences in gay bars, her unhappy first marriage and her love relationships with her female partners. Nancy D. Kates presents Sontag in her guises of thinker, activist and lover. The result is a biopic infused with a dynamic spirit as well as a nostalgic look at a city and an era.
Awards for Regarding Susan Sontag
Grand Jury Award – Festival MIX Milano di Cinema Gaylesbico e Queer Culture 2015
Nancy D. Kates
Bereits mit ihrem Abschlussfilm im Bereich Dokumentarfilm an der Stanford University gewann Kates 1995 den Studenten-Oscar, Their Own Vietnam wurde außerdem auf dem Sundance Film Festival und vielen anderen Festivals gezeigt. Ihr Film Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin, den Kates selbst produzierte und bei dem sie Regie führte, gewann international über 25 Preise, unter anderem den GLAAD Media Award der US-amerikanischen Organisation Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Gelegentlich schreibt sie für den San Francisco Chronicle und andere Publikationen.
Filme von Nancy D. Kates (Auswahl)
P.O.V. (Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin) 2003 | Castro Cowboys 1998 | Their Own Vietnam 1995