BAM Salon (Book and Movie Salon)

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About the Event

Our Book and Movie Salon (BAM Salon) looks to develop and deepen LGBTQ+ community and connection through stimulating and informative conversations about books and movies that highlight women authors and women’s stories and experiences.

“Salon” references a centuries rich history of social gatherings from around the world most often run by women. Creative minds come together for the art of conversation, learning and social pleasure. Gertrude Stein and Zora Neale Hurston ran noteworthy salons in the U.S. in the 1920’s which were famous for bringing together innovative thinkers and artists. We hope you join us for a taste of vintage mutual education, enrichment and social fun!

Hosts

Flynn Sylvest and Irma O’dell

When & Where

Third Tuesday of the month,  7:00pm to 8:30pm PST

Virtual via Zoom

Event Schedule

June, 2022: “Fire” (1996) | Directed by Deepa Mehta

Two Indian women stuck in loveless marriages find solace in each other.

July, 2022: “The husband’s secret” by Liane Moriarty (2013)

Imagine that your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret—something with the potential to destroy not just the life you built together, but the lives of others as well. Imagine, then, that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive.

August, 2022: “Summerland” (2020) | Directed by Jessica Swale

During World War II, reclusive writer, Alice has her sequestered life upended when Frank, an evacuee from London Blitz, is left in her care. Despite resolving to be rid of him, Alice finds herself and her emotions reawakened by him in this movie about womanhood, love, and friendship.

September, 2022: “Naked in the promise land: a memoir” by Lillian Faderman (2003)

Born in 1940, Lillian Faderman was the only child of an uneducated and unmarried immigrant Jewish woman. Her mother, whose family perished in the Holocaust, was racked by guilt at having come to America and left them behind; she suffered recurrent psychotic episodes. Her only escape from the brutal labor of her sweatshop job was her fiercely loved daughter, Lilly, whose poignant dream throughout an impoverished childhood was to become a movie star and “rescue” her mother.

October, 2022: “Children’s hour” (1961) | Directed by William Wyler

Longtime friends Martha and Karen run a boarding school for girls. When an unruly child, Mary is punished for lying, she concocts a story that Karen and Martha are having a lesbian relationship. When the story spreads, parents withdraw their children from the school. The women’s lawsuit for libel hits many snags when they lack witnesses to speak for them.

November, 2022: “Alone” by E.J. Noyes (2019)

Half a million dollars will be Celeste Thorne’s reward for spending four years of her life in total isolation. No faces. No voices. No way to leave. When she finds an injured hiker in the woods bordering her living compound, her strictly governed world is thrown into disarray. But even as she struggles with the morality of breaking the rules of the experiment, Celeste can’t deny her growing attraction to the kind and enigmatic Olivia Soldano.

December, 2022: “Kissing Jessica Stein” (2002) | Directed by Charles Herman-Wurmfeld

Jessica is at the end of her emotional rope. She happens upon an intriguing personal ad, whose only drawback is that it’s in the “women seeking women” section. On a daring whim, she decides to answer it. She meets funky downtown hipster Helen Cooper for drinks, and to her surprise, they click instantly. With conventional gender roles absent, the two women proceed to muddle through an earnest but hilarious courtship, making up the rules as they go.