Nelson Sullivan

Nelson Sullivan, a videographer in Manhattan circa 1983 to 1989, documented a large chunk of the final six years of his life, capturing his days and nights with drag queens and other NYC outcasts of the time. His style takes on a "home movie quality" that captures a lost - and now romanticized - American era in all of its mundane glory.

From 1983 to 1989, New Yorker Nelson Sullivan captured more than 1,900 hours of video footage and saved most of it on VHS tapes, making a collection of 601 episodes documenting his everyday life in the East-Village, as well as following some flamboyant local icons like RuPaul, Sylvia Miles, and Phoebe Legere.

Tells the story of Nelson Sullivan who was the unofficial video documentary filmmaker of the late 1980s downtown New York nightlife and LGBTQ+ community, with extensive archival segments directed by Sullivan himself.