Richard Schmiechen
Directing
Known For

"Roseland" is made up of three stories, sometimes connecting, all set in the famed New York City dance palace, and all having the same theme: finding the right dance partner.
Roseland

Harvey Milk was an outspoken human rights activist and one of the first openly gay U.S. politicians elected to public office; even after his assassination in 1978, he continues to inspire disenfranchised people around the world.
The Times of Harvey Milk

After a long absence, artist Margaret Church returns to her aging parent's home to finish a portrait of them, only to to discover that her parents have decided to sell their home.
The Portrait

The life and work of the woman described as "The Rosa Parks of Gay Rights". During the repressive 1950's, Dr. Evelyn Hooker undertook ground breaking research that led to a radical discovery: homosexuals were not, by definition, "sick." Dr. Hooker's finding sent shock waves through the psychiatric community and culminated in a major victory for gay rights: in 1974 the weight of her studies, along with gay activism, forced the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its official manual of mental disorders. Startling archival footage of the medical procedure used to "cure" homosexuality, images from the underground gay world of the McCarthy era, and home movies of literary icon Christopher Isherwood bring to life history which we must never forget.
Changing Our Minds: The Story of Dr. Evelyn Hooker

New program about The Times of Harvey Milk and Gus Van Sant’s Milk, featuring Epstein, Van Sant, actor James Franco, and Milk friends Cleve Jones, Anne Kronenberg, and Nicoletta
Two Films, One Legacy
Now We Live on Clifton follows 10 year old Pam Taylor and her 12 year old brother Scott around their multiracial West Lincoln Park neighborhood. The kids worry that they'll be forced out of the neighborhood they grew up in by the gentrification following the expansion of DePaul University.