Filmmaker Statement

Hillside is one of 30-some LGBTQ+ campgrounds across America. Founded in 1986 in the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania, it served as a meeting place for closeted (and not) men seeking companionship and community and as refuge for those fleeing the cities during the AIDS crisis. Now it's a place people go to relax, mingle, disappear, explore, and — in the words of Wayne (the head of the camp) -- "to finally be who you really were." It's a special place. I decided to make a documentary about Hillside. I had grand ambitions and interviewed dozens of campers. What I didn't have was a story. Then, I got a call from a man who introduced himself as a friend of my father's from the Air Force, in the late 1950s. He told me they had been lovers in secret for two years. My father had been his first love. (My dad passed away in 2018.) Suddenly, I could see a shape for "Campfire", a combination of fiction and documentary...