Nelson Sullivan

Nelson Sullivan, a videographer in Manhattan circa 1983 to 1989, documented a large chunk of the final six years of his life, capturing his days and nights with drag queens and other NYC outcasts of the time. His style takes on a "home movie quality" that captures a lost - and now romanticized - American era in all of its mundane glory.

From 1983 to 1989, New Yorker Nelson Sullivan captured more than 1,900 hours of video footage and saved most of it on VHS tapes, making a collection of 601 episodes documenting his everyday life in the East-Village, as well as following some flamboyant local icons like RuPaul, Sylvia Miles, and Phoebe Legere.

Tells the story of Nelson Sullivan who was the unofficial video documentary filmmaker of the late 1980s downtown New York nightlife and LGBTQ+ community, with extensive archival segments directed by Sullivan himself.

On an afternoon outing with Felecia in New York 1984, RuPaul has an incident with some homophobes at a showing of Kevin Larmee's paintings at the Avenue B Gallery and does some fun things too.

Nelson Sullivan was a prominent figure in New York's queer community in the 1980s. With a video camera that he rarely let go of, he was also a chronicler of the club scene of the time. The archival documentary draws on the rich video archive Sullivan left behind. It looks at a marginalised subculture and the life of the man sometimes described as the first vlogger.

Nelson Sullivan was enrolled in film school when he shot this Super 8 film at Fire Island, a gay-friendly New York City getaway. Around this time, Nelson and his partner owned a salon on Fire Island called David/Nelson.