Today, we completed the sound mix for the "I Am A Sex Addict" DVD extras. During my lunch break, I went to get a salad at Whole Foods and, at the check-out line, ran into Rob Epstein who made the academy-award winning The Times of Harvey Milk, one of my all-time favorite documentaries. He also co-directed, with his partner Jeffrey Friedman, Paragraph 175, The Celluloid Closet, and Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt. He was also, along with Veronica Selver and the late Peter Adair, part of the filmmaking collective that, in 1978, made Word is Out, one of the first (and, in my opinion, best) documentaries about the gay experience.
I had met him only once before, at a screening of Underground Zero, the omnibus film about 9/11 to which we both contributed a short. He told me he had seen "I Am A Sex Addict" and really liked it. I was touched. I told him I'd heard great things about his class (we both taught at California College of the Arts this year). He told me he'd heard great things about my class as well.
By then the cashier had finished ringing him up, and it was my turn, and we said goodbye.
Rob Epstein and Harvey Milkposted by Caveh Zahedi at
11:54 PM
