Professor Tom Kalin Directs Episode for ‘Pride’

Professor Tom Kalin recently directed an episode for Pride, a limited series that is set to premiere on FX soon. Kalin’s episode, “1950s: People Had Parties,” is kicking it off. The series will premiere on Friday May 14, 2021 at 8pm EST with three episodes in a row, all will be available to screen on Hulu shortly after. 

A six-part docuserie, Pride is about the fight for LGBTQ+ civil rights in America. The series will begin with the 1950s and work forward through the decades with six LGBTQ+ directors exploring stories ranging from the FBI surveillance of homosexuals during the 1950s Lavender Scare to the “Culture Wars” of the 1990s and beyond. 

Kalin’s episode will give a revealing look at the vibrant and full lives lived by queer people in the 1950s amidst a steep rise in governmental regulations against the LGBTQ+ community led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, who ushered in an era of government-sanctioned persecution. 

Tom Kalin’s critically acclaimed work traverses diverse forms and genres including narrative features, mixed media installations and short experimental films. His first feature, Swoon, was awarded the Caligari Prize in Berlin and named one of the top 100 American Independent films by the British Film Institute. Savage Grace, starring Julianne Moore and Eddie Redmayne, premiered in Cannes, opened Zurich and screened at Sundance, London and Tribeca among many others. Nominated for a Spirit Award, it was named one of the top ten films of 2008 in Artforum, The LA Times and Paper. As a producer, Kalin's films include I Shot Andy Warhol and Go Fish. He was a writer of artist Cindy Sherman’s feature film Office Killer. He has twice been included in the Whitney Biennial. A 2011 Guggenheim Fellow, Kalin’s work is in the collection of the Centre George Pompidou, The Whitney Museum and MoMA. He was a founding member of AIDS the activist collective Gran Fury, known for its provocative public art projects, which exhibited in the Venice Biennale and had a major survey of its work in 2012 at NYU. In 2015, he and frequent collaborator Doveman (musician Thomas Bartlett) presented a gallery show in NYC at Participant titled My Silent One/In The Sweetness of Time; and at Dublin’s National Concert Hall for Blood and The Moon, an evening of film, music and performance celebrating the work of Yeats. Kalin is currently working as a Writer/Director for the feature film entitled Archer Gray, a thriller based on the novel by Stephen Dobyns.