It was quite a departure for Queerguru when we recently interviewed Charles Upchurch, a Professor in British History at Florida State University about his latest book:“Beyond the Law”: The Politics Ending the Death Penalty for Sodomy in Britain.  It was the first time we had considered queer history that pre-dated WW2.  However, we have just been sent a preview of a new documentary  NOT A TAME LION about the work of John Boswell a Yale Professor who wrote  SAME-SEX UNIONS IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE, a book that changed the trajectory of the Marriage Equality debate.

Boswell was an extraordinary personality who became a professor at the age of 30 and read and translated 14 ancient and modern languages.  He was granted full access to the highly classified and restricted Vatican archives from which he researched four award-winning books, making him a world-renowned expert in Medieval History and Linguistics.

NOT A TAME LION, written and directed by Craig Bettendorf, offers first-hand accounts of Boswell’s closest friends, students, colleagues, and family members as they recount his life, his works, and his final days feverishly working to complete, his book that changed the trajectory of the Marriage Equality debate, all while privately battling the debilitating effects of AIDS, which led to his death on Dec. 24, 1994, at the age of 47.  

The documentary is making an impact on Film Festival Audiences having won two top awards already.  Hopefully it will be picked up by a Distributor soon, as it so deserves to reach a wide queer audience so they can experience the story of this icon who influenced society to such a great extent but who few remember in 2022.