Years before the Beats arrived in San Francisco, the city exploded with artistic expressions – painting, theatre, film, poetry. At its center was the groundbreaking filmmaker and poet James Broughton. Big Joy explores Broughton’s passionate embrace of a life of pansexual transcendence and a fiercely independent mantra: ‘follow your own weird’. His remarkable story spans the post-war San Francisco Renaissance, his influence on the Beat generation, escape to Europe during the McCarthy years, a lifetime of acclaim for his joyous experimental films and poetry celebrating the human body, finding his soulmate at age 61, and finally, his ascendancy as a revered bard of sexual liberation.

(SxSw 2013, Tribecca 2013)

FILMMAKER IN PERSON!

STEPHEN SILHA (director)
Stephen Silha is a freelance writer, filmmaker, facilitator, and futurist. Born in Minneapolis, he began writing for newspapers in the suburban fifth grade, and went on to report for The Minneapolis Star and The Christian Science Monitor. He has worked with several philanthropic foundations including the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and with Children’s Express News Service, Libraries for the Future, the United Nations, Yes! Magazine, and Good News/Good Deeds: Citizen Effectiveness in the Age of Electronic Democracy.

Silha met James Broughton at a gathering in 1989, after James had moved to Port Townsend, WA with his lover, husband and soulmate Joel Singer. They became fast friends, and Broughton mentored Silha for many joyful communicative years.

Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton is his first feature documentary.