The Roaming Center for Magnetic Alternatives (2025)

The Roaming Center for Magnetic Alternatives

2025

Documentary

Synopsis

The Roaming Center for Magnetic Alternatives follows a mobile archiving center in a cargo trailer as it crosses the Midwest to digitize the VHS tapes of LGBTQ+ folks living in Middle America. In real-time digitizing sessions, people watch their own histories as they are being preserved, and reveal a look into queer life in the Bible Belt since the 1980s. This film takes a road trip through the past into the present, and gives us a glimpse of what an ever-expanding queer archive looks like in the future.

Credits

Director

Brydie O'Connor

Cast

Kendell Harbin as Self

Crew

Arno Mokros (Consulting Producer)

Kendell Harbin (Consulting Producer)

Martha Gregory (Consulting Producer)

Sean Weiner (Consulting Producer)

Sarah Simka Jaffe (Director of Photography)

Brydie O'Connor (Editor)