Play reading and film screening, followed by a Q&A with the film’s main figure, Rev. Bernárd J. Lynch.

Doors 5.00pm / Play + Film £6 / Film Only £5

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Aesthesia at the Horse Hospital for the Bloomsbury Festival presents:

A short play reading of The AIDS Missionary by Ash Kotak followed by a special screening of A Priest On Trial .

The AIDS Missionary (2019) - selected scenes from the full length play by Ash Kotak on Fr Bernard J Lynch and the battle between the first AIDS ministry he found in New York City with Dignity USA (New York Chapter) vs Mother Theresa’s Missionaries of Charity Gift of Love Hospice in their converted rectory of St. Veronica’s in Greenwich Village in 1985.

Cast:

Denholm Spurr as Father Bernard Lynch (The Grass is Always Grindr, The HIV Monologues)

Sudha Bhuchar as Sister Shalini / journalist (The Archers, Mary Poppins Returns)

James Flynn as Father Jeremy Mullins / Father Bruce Mullins (Versailles)

Dominic Holmes as Sister Puta Condom (HIM, WORK, The Bunker)

A Priest On Trial - dir. Conor McAnally, 1990, Ireland, 50min. A Green Apple Television Production for Channel Four, UK.

A documentary profile of Father Bernard Lynch, the controversial gay rights campaigner who tirelessly administers to the AIDS community of New York. He was indicted on four charges of child abuse in a sensational court case in 1988, which collapsed amid allegations that he had been set up the FBI and Catholic Church authorities.

His ministry and his community’s commitment to civil rights for gay people led to repeated conflict with the Catholic Church and State authorities.

“When there is no Love, you put in Love, and there you find Love. At the height of the AIDS crisis, these women and men came to know the victory of life over death.”

Rev. Bernárd J. Lynch has been a tireless advocate for the rights of LGBT people for more than forty years as an out gay and proud Roman Catholic priest beginning with his work in Dignity/New York in the 1970s.

In 2017 he was honored by a Proclamation from the Council of the City of New York for more than 40 years of service to and activism with the LGBT and AIDS communities.

Followed by a Q&A with Fr Bernard Lynch and curator / writer Ash Kotak

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