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Danny

Stashu Kybartas

1987 00:20:00 United StatesEnglish

Description

This video is a moving personal documentary about Danny, a friend of Kybartas who died of an AIDS-related illness in 1986. This powerful work explores the reason for Danny’s return home and his attempts to reconcile his relationship with his family members who had difficulty facing his homosexuality and his imminent death. Retracing Danny’s memory of his once-high lifestyle in the clubs and gyms of Miami, Danny avoids sentimentalizing its subject as it juxtaposes images, text, and voice-over to build a sense of the psychological struggle brought on by Danny’s impending, premature death.

About Stashu Kybartas

In describing his work, Stashu Kybartas has said, “I have chosen to work in video and performance because these are storytelling media.  I want to tell my stories and the stories of others because I believe that through telling one’s story, one can be healed.”  Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Kybartas’ work confounds traditional documentary by interweaving memory, reflection, historical and personal documents, interviews, and historical research to flesh out the past and provide history with a human face.