A documentary film about Franco Stevens, a fierce lesbian role model who in manifesting her own dream made space for hundreds of thousands of others to have a chance at theirs.
With a fist full of credit cards, a lucky run at the horse track, and a title that called to mind a certain French film star, Franco Stevens launched the best-selling lesbian lifestyle magazine ever published.
AHEAD OF THE CURVE tracks the importance of lesbian visibility from the early 90s to the present through the story of Franco’s founding of Curve magazine.
As the magazine and Franco’s legacy faces extinction, she turns to three modern day activists to understand queer intersectional visibility work today and determine her path forward.
AHEAD OF THE CURVE is fiscally sponsored by The Film Collaborative, a 501(c)3 organization. All donations are tax deductible.*
Check out the Kickstarter here and donate if you can!
AHEAD OF THE CURVE is about Franco Stevens, who founded the most successful lesbian magazine in the world, and the impact her work had on our culture. Growing up, Franco never saw any representation of queer women and she didn’t even know it was possible for a woman to be gay. When she realized she was a lesbian, it changed the course of her life.
In 1990, Franco created a magazine that was a safe place for lesbians. It arrived in a brown wrapper every month bringing news and images of strong, diverse women; the beautiful richness of her community. Today, you can find Curve on the newsstand next to Self and Cosmo. But for its subscribers, it ships in an opaque wrapper – because it’s still crucial to protect queer women’s anonymity and safety.
Franco learned that the magazine is in trouble, and after years of retirement she is wading back in to figure out if there is a way for Curve to continue serving the community.
She reaches out to educator Kim Katrin Milan, YouTube star Arielle Scarcella, and slam poet Denice Frohman to learn about where lesbian community is today. Kim shares the powerful cultural shift in which queer women and Women of Color are increasingly seen as the authors of their own experiences. Denice talks about how important it is that we feel connected to a lineage of strong queer women, and the beauty of coming together in community to share our stories and our truths. Arielle explains how young queer people today feel more trust for authentic stories shared directly.
Should Franco rally the community to keep the magazine going? Should the print publication evolve into another entity that supports lesbian visibility? Or is it time to let it all go? With the imminent demise of her magazine bearing down, Franco reconnects with her original mission to guide her decisions.