By Liam Heitmann-Ryce-LeMercier

Casting her mind back to San Francisco in the 1970s – the setting of her 2009 short film 575 Castro St., a meditative study of the titular location where activist Harvey Milk processed the film negatives of his queer clientele – writer-director Jenni Olson recognises a strong sense of political urgency.

“To my knowledge, from my historical research,” she begins, “it was a pretty amazing time. So much of what was going on politically at that time, thinking about coming off of the Stonewall riots, was just the importance of people being out. And, you know, being proud, right?”

Shot during the production of Gus Van Sant’s Oscar-winning biopic Milk, Olson’s film offers a reflective examination of the painstakingly recreated Castro Street camera store where Milk recorded a tape intended to be played in the event of his assassination. Chillingly, the audio was deployed for its intended purpose barely a week after its original recording in November 1977, when Milk was shot to death.

575 Castro St. plays the entire duration of Milk’s recorded tape against still shots of the period-accurate recreation of the titular camera store. The profound sense of calm evoked by the sun-drenched interior adds even greater emphasis to the fateful words recorded by Milk.

“Obviously, it was a different time in terms of people being out – or not out,” Olson offers. “And a lot of the tape in the film, the recording that Harvey had made, he talks about the importance of people coming out. It’s such a beautiful reflection that he makes. He says, ‘I hope that every gay doctor will come out, a gay lawyer… only this way will we achieve our rights.’ It’s beautiful that he has such a strong emphasis on that.”

Olson trails off momentarily, then returns to the tape’s darker undertow. Milk recorded it after winning office and receiving death threats, she explains. “The tape is specifically made to be played in the event of his assassination. It’s really chilling to think about at this moment in history.”

Olson underlines the grim significance of the Briggs Initiative that had been imposed at the time. A Republican serving in the California State Senate, John Briggs proposed legislation that Olson refers to as “this horrible bill, Proposition 6, that would fire gay teachers, and would not allow gay people to be teachers in California public schools.”

Milk, as a staunch defender of queer rights, directly challenged this in 1978. “He debated Briggs,” Olson states. “He just totally takes him down.” Today, Olson says, the same trends for exclusion and intolerance return in “attacks of political fear-mongering against trans people. These are not things that we should be debating with people,” she insists. “It should be stood up against, not engaged with.”

575 Castro St., however, pointedly does not shout. It listens and ponders, in a dreamy state of still, sun-dappled photography. Commissioned by Focus Features “as an extra for the website of Milk” within the film’s promotional slate, Olson had initially expected to film the immaculately reproduced period exteriors.

“For whatever reasons, it was not that compelling,” she reflects. Instead, inside the rebuilt camera shop where Milk made the recording, she played a recording of the tape on her phone and found it “so emotionally intense” that the interior instead became the film.

Notably, she emphasises, “the film literally consists of four shots. That’s it. The fourth shot is almost half the film: it’s seven minutes long.” Presented in a ponderous assembly of light and shadow, with light flaring briefly off the reflections of passing cars, there is within 575 Castro St. a calm that “foregrounds the audio, until you’re really you’re listening to Harvey’s voice in this kind of contained, quiet space.”

This invitational, essayistic style of filmmaking remains Olson’s directorial trademark. As an artist who makes, by her own admission, “very small films” Olson is not chasing fame and fortune, she says. Nevertheless, the reach of her films has been global and long-lasting. Having presented her work at two of the world’s foremost international film festivals, Sundance and Berlin, she proudly suggest, “It kind of doesn’t get better than that.”

To cap it all off, in 2021, the TEDDY AWARD honoured Olson with its Special Award, recognising not only her films, but a life spent in queer cinema as curator, distributor, critic and historian.

Looking back on the accolade today, she says, “I always think of my career as being about working to facilitate connections between queer films and the audiences who need to see them.”

This viewpoint echoes the TEDDY AWARD’s praise of her “bridge-building work” at the 2021 ceremony, for making queer film history “visible and tangible.” Asked what queer prizes still offer, Olson admits, “I’m suddenly feeling very emotional and nostalgic,” her eyes tearing up as she takes a moment to reassess her answers.

She returns with a simple claim: “It continues to be so important to call attention to the best and most important LGBTQ films. In that sense, 575 Castro St. returns as a bridge, between a 1970s storefront and the listeners of now.”