August 28, 2020

In this week’s episode, I speak with filmmaker, Dante Alencastre, director & producer of AIDS Diva: The Legend of Connie Norman. This episode’s song is one of Connie’s favorites, CeCe Peniston’s “Finally.”

Photo Credit: John Skalicky

Filmmaker Dante Alencastre is shown from the chest up and at a slight angle. He wears a black T-shirt. In the background is a black chair with a patterned pillow. He smiles.

Photo Credit: Chuck Stallard

Connie Norman is seen from the waist up. Her hair is curly and she wears a dark colored t-shirt and jacket. The sleeves are rolled up and she holds a megaphone to her mouth. She is outside in front of a vehicle and a woman stands to her right and just behind her.

Dante’s Bio

Dante Alencastre is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and LGBTQ community activist, based in West Hollywood, California. His filmmaking and work on the boards of Los Angeles Arts organizations and political and community groups is focused particularly on the overlapping Transgender, Latino/a, and gender-non-conforming sub-tribes within the community. In 2018, Dante became the Executive Director of the California LGBT Arts Alliance. Dante found his personal calling documenting the lives of LGBT individuals during a trip back to his native Peru, which resulted in the 2007 award-winning film, En El Fuego (In the Fire) which won the Outfest Audience Award. Updating the successes of this Peruvian group of transactivists five years later, resulted in the film El Fuego Dentro (The Fire Inside). Dante’s documentary Transvisible: Bamby Salcedo’s Story (2013), focusing on the personal and professional life of an extraordinary Los Angeles transgender activist and leader, premiered at Outfest and toured around the country. Dante also directed Raising Zoey (2016), the story of a 13-year-old transgender girl, Zoey Luna, and her highly supportive Latina working-class single mother, Ofelia. The documentary demonstrates the crucial impact that instinctive, and unwavering parental love can have for trans children. The film has been shown to acclaim in film festivals, at universities, and in community groups worldwide, as well as in targeted, under served communities in California. Dante’s latest film is AIDS Diva: The Legend of Connie Norman.

WUwD_Episode 7_DAlencastre Transcript_8282020

AIDS Diva: The Legend of Connie Norman Logline

Seizing her power as she confronts her mortality, trailblazing trans activist Connie Norman evolves as an irrepressible, challenging, and soulful voice for the AIDS and queer communities of the early 90’s Los Angeles.

AIDS Diva: The Legend of Connie Norman Brief Synopsis

As the self-appointed “AIDS DIVA” and ACT UP/LA spokesperson in the early 90’s Los Angeles, Connie Norman stood proudly in her multiple, fluid, and evolving LGBTQ identities. Both beloved and confrontational, Connie’s soulful and salty rantings and intersectional politics were heard widely through her newspaper column, and pioneering radio and cable TV talk shows. Serving as a bridge in both gender and politics, and modeling “wokeness” in an early era of crisis, Connie’s piercing and compassionate voice urges us again into action, to fully engage with our lives and our world.