Film Analysis | Film Reviews

Tradition, Tradition! & the Love Revolution

1 Nov , 2004  

Written by Genevieve Butler | Posted by:

A review of 'My Sister, My Bride,' the story of one couple’s struggle for equality to premiere at the Boston Jewish Film Festival this month.

On Monday November 8, the 16th Annual Boston Jewish Film Festival will celebrate same-sex marriage at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. San Francisco Bay Area filmmaker Bonnie Burt’s 28-minute video, "My Sister, My Bride" will be screened along with "The Gay Marriage Thing," by Stephanie Higgins of Massachusetts. The screenings will be immediately followed by a panel discussion of local activists, and Burt will be there as a special guest, the evening’s Visiting Artist.

Marriage is indeed a salient issue these days: from San Francisco to Boston, voices of tradition and tolerance have battled; a lively debate has begun nation-wide, and within individual families and relationships. What began with Burt’s offer to shoot the wedding ceremony of her friends, Farrell Cafferata and Caren Jenkins, evolved into a political documentary in this, the current cultural climate. Serendipitous timing also worked to the filmmaker and the couple’s advantage as their home video is now an invaluable record of civil rights history making, a chronicle of the period between February 12 and March 11, 2004 when 4,000 same sex couples, including Jenkins and Cafferata, were legally married in San Francisco.

By October 26, 2002, Jenkins and Cafferata had been together for five years; they had left the Bay Area for Carson City, Nevada where Burt’s video begins on their ranch. Jenkins and Cafferata are shown talking about their lives together, alternately hanging out outside with their dog, dancing at their first commitment ceremony, and sitting in their home-office. For them, Jenkins said, the celebration of their relationship evolved into their B’rit Ahuva: "It happened to us, we were caught in the tractor beam of tradition." Cafferata interjected, explaining, "That’s Caren; she hates tradition, I like tradition." They agreed however that they wanted to enjoy the same recognition from friends and family for their commitment to each other that straight couples receive through traditional marriages. The two women spoke openly and frankly about their decision process, about the challenges and sometimes disapproval they encountered along the way.

The footage of the B’rit Ahuva features their Rabi, another woman with an interest in equal rights for same-sex relationships, including in her address an appeal to the gathering to ‘vote no on Question 2.’ Overturning Question 2 would have lifted the ban on same-sex marriages in Nevada, mere days later on November 2, 2002, but Nevadans overwhelmingly voted to keep the ban.

Just as Jenkins and Cafferata encountered supporters, protesters and the undecided among their own family and friends, civil rights for gays and lesbians has been encouraged, thwarted, intermittently threatened and advanced since the two women first made it official. About a year after the Nevada vote, the Massachusetts Supreme Court found its own ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, and threw it out on November 18, 2003. President Bush, in his 2004 State of the Union address, voiced interest in a Constitutional amendment to ban gay and lesbian marriage, which would prevent other states from following suit. The most recent and, for Jenkins and Cafferata, accessible gain arrived closer to home — San Francisco — but unfortunately did not linger. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom began issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples on February 12, 2004, and Jenkins and Cafferata leapt at the chance to have another ceremony, this time winning recognition from the state.

Burt’s narrative continues on March 10, 2004, at San Francisco City Hall, where Jenkins and Cafferata, this time accompanied by their infant son, Dean Elazar Cafferata Jenkins, had come to be recognized as parents as well as spouses. Since their B’rit Ahuva, Jenkins had given birth to Dean, but because the couple was not legally married, Cafferata was forced to adopt him. With their license from the city and county of San Francisco, this procedure would not be necessary should they decide to have more children.

Burt filmed the couple, and many others, inside San Francisco City Hall. The filmmaker also interviewed officials and bystanders, and witnessed strangers become fellow celebrants, as lines of hopeful couples cheered as people were married around the clock. Upon exchanging vows — holding hands with Baby Dean between them in a pouch across Cafferata’s chest — and being proclaimed "spouses for life," Jenkins was already looking ahead: "I can’t wait to see what trouble we can stir up to make this official everywhere." With their own marriage official, she was also thinking about more children, and it was clear that they both felt at last free to pursue happiness in their life together. "We have to pave the way," Cafferata said. "We’re not going to change society, or other people’s marriages, but we’re not going to be second class citizens."

With their ceremony, and the official status they thus gained as a couple and as parents, Jenkins and Cafferata, have already helped to pave the way, though the path is not an easy one. The day after Burt, Jenkins and Cafferata’s visit to San Francisco, City Hall was ordered to stop issuing the licenses. Burt’s video, which is both a keepsake for the family and an important document capturing what she called a month long "love revolution," also contributes to the discourse that must ultimately, definitively, conclude.

‘My Sister, My Bride’ will be screened at 8:30 PM on Monday, November 8, 2004 at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. Bonnie Burt will be present, and there will be a panel discussion immediately following the screening.
To learn more about Bonnie Burt, or to order one of her many documentaries on Jewish life, visit: www.Bonnieburt.com. To learn more about the Boston Jewish Film Festival, visit: www.bjff.org. For schedules and tickets visit: www.coolidge.org.


'My Sister, My Bride' will be screened at 8:30 PM on Monday, November 8, 2004 at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. Bonnie Burt will be present, and there will be a panel discussion immediately following the screening. To learn more about Bonnie Burt, or to order one of her many documentaries on Jewish life, visit: www.Bonnieburt.com. To learn more about the Boston Jewish Film Festival, visit: www.bjff.org. For schedules and tickets visit: www.coolidge.org.

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