The Times of Harvey Milk

A sober portrait of flamboyant politician Harvey Milk, who successfully tried to give a political voice to the homosexual community of San Francisco: a success he paid for with his life. On November 27, 1978, Milk and Mayor George Moscone, at the time members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, were murdered by Dan White. Using historical material and commentary from those who were there, the film aims to reconstruct the events leading up to, and following on from, Milk's death. From his first political steps in the alternative Castro neighborhood, a center of the burgeoning gay rights movement, through his election to the Board of Supervisors - making him the first openly homosexual politician in the United States - to the murder and reactions to his death. Although Milk served on the Board of Supervisors for just 11 months, he nevertheless managed to take a number of significant steps forward for the gay rights movement. The response of the residents of San Francisco to the murders is striking: a mass silent procession was organized to express the genuine and widespread feeling of grief. The relatively light sentence imposed on White provoked more heated reactions.