Actor turned filmmaker Brian J Smith’s debut behind the camera is his love letter to Fire Island The place is evocative to so many queers around the world. The narrow ten square miles sand bar of 600 beach houses, a hundred co-ops, a beautiful beach, wooden boardwalks, no roads or cars, and a handful of commercial businesses is 49 miles off the coast of New York City in Long Island Sound. It’s played host to generations of queer New Yorkers looking for community, sex, sea, drugs, gorgeous wooden beach houses, nudity, hedonism and a dancefloor.

Smith carefully takes off his rose colored glasses to look at Fire Island’s past and to think ahead about its future. He tells us The Pines has always been a place that has been cared for by the people who live there, now going forward it must also be cared by all the visitors as well, if it is to survive Queerguru caught up with him prior to A House is Not a Disco screening at OUTshine in Miami …. the latest in its Festival run,  Ris Fatah our reviewer gave it a rave review (see https://queerguru.com/queergurus-ris-… ) and we were anxious to know more about why Smith is so passionate about the place