Under the Southern Cross: The Art and Legacy of Henry L. Faulkner

UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS is an unflinching portrayal of Appalachian queer painter and poet Henry L. Faulkner from Egypt, Kentucky (1924 – 1981). The most documented queer man in the history of Kentucky and possibly the country, Faulkner documented his life and lovers as an adolescent in the 1930s til the day he died. This film tells a raucous, unapologetic and unfiltered story told with Faulkner’s photographs, painting, poetry, rare film and audio recordings, and interviews with people who knew him.

This film describes a boy and a man who was unwilling to hide who he was and was willing to face the consequences for his authenticity. Through his national reputation as a painter, Faulkner befriended many well-known LGBTQ+ artists, including Edward Melcarth, Tennessee Williams, James Herlihy and actors Bette Davis, Marlena Dietrict, and Vincent Price, Bertoldt Brecht and Stefan Brecht.

Faulkner was unashamedly gay in a time when many LGBTQ people lived closeted lives. Self-proclaimed a ‘radical homosexual,’ Henry’s art was a fusion of life experience, an acute sense of color and his sexuality. For him there was no separation. Faulkner’s openess cost him dearly, including incarceration in insane asylums and frequent police raids of his house. His homes became refuges for many young people in Lexington, Kentucky and Key West Florida, both gay and straight, in search of a freer way of life.

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