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The Human Rights Watch Film Festival is coming to the West End Cinema for a smattering of one-off screenings. The month-long series opens with Out in the Silence, a documentary chronicling the intersecting lives of director Joe Wilson and CJ Springer, a 16-year-old from the filmmaker’s hometown of Oil City, Pa. After Wilson’s marriage announcement to his partner Dean Hamer appears in the Oil City newspaper, CJ’s mother reaches out to Wilson to help assuage CJ’s painful coming out experience. In filming his trip back to Pennsylvania, Wilson documents the difficult realities that continue to affect LGBT adolescents, a fact made even more potent in the wake of a distressing wave of teen bullying and subsequent suicides. Following the screening, Wilson and Hamer will be on hand to lead a discussion that, like the film itself, is sure to be equal parts sobering and hopeful.
OUT IN THE SILENCE SCREENS AT 7 P.M. AT WEST END CINEMA, 2301 M ST. NW. $11. (202) 419-3456.