Jon Gartenberg Appears in VITO - The New HBO Documentary on the Life of Vito Russo

"Directed by award-winner Jeffrey Schwarz, VITO paints a touching portrait of this outspoken

activist in the LGBT community’s struggle for equal rights, using period footage and film 

clips to capture a vibrant era of gay culture. “If you’re going to talk about the gay-rights 

movement, you’re going to talk about Vito,” says journalist David Ehrenstein.

The documentary features rich archival interviews with Vito, as well as insights from gay

rights activists, including: Larry Kramer and Arthur Evans; film scholars, among them

former MoMA film curator Jon Gartenberg; and journalists/writers such as Michael

Schiavi and Gabriel Rotello.  VITO also offers personal accounts from his many friends,

including Lily Tomlin and Bruce Vilanch, and his family members, including brother

Charles Russo and cousin Phyllis Antonellis.

Vito’s love of movies guided him to a job in the film department at the Museum of Modern

Art, where he began taking note of gay characters in early films. The result of his research

was “The Celluloid Closet,” an entertaining and informative lecture and clip show that

combined his love of show business and radical gay politics, which he took on the road to

gay film festivals and college campuses. His seminal 1981 book of the same name 

explored the ways gays and lesbians were portrayed on film, what lessons those characters

taught gay and straight audiences, and how those negative images were at the root of

society’s homophobia. The book was later adapted into the 1995 HBO Peabody Award-

winning documentary “The Celluloid Closet,” directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman..."