Step into the electrifying realm of radical glamour, where Sundays at Café Tabac immortalizes the iconic lesbian night that lit up New York’s East Village from 1993 to 1995. A vibrant celebration of diversity and unapologetic self-expression, this unforgettable gathering not only transformed lives but also mirrored the surge of visibility that sent shockwaves through mainstream media—during a time when being seen was a matter of survival.”
ABOUT THE FILM
WHERE DID LESBIAN NIGHTLIFE GO?
Once thriving in cities across America, lesbian bars and nightlife have largely disappeared. With advances in LGBTQ rights and the rise of digital platforms, matched against the increasing challenges of accessing affordable spaces and gentrification-based community disruptions, the question arises: Is physical queer nightlife still necessary? Does it hold relevance beyond “last call?” Or is it an antiquated vestige of the past, as ephemeral as a swipe or a click?
Nightlife has long been a cornerstone of queer history and activism. The early ’90s— shaped by the AIDS crisis and attacks on women’s and LGBTQ+ rights—was a pivotal time, one where our nightlife and activism thrived hand in hand. Today, we’re seeing a resurgence of political and cultural attacks from the conservative Christian right, reigniting a deep need within our community to gather, connect, and affirm our existence. This longing to unite echoes the spirit of the early ’90s and countless eras past, as our community once again fights for our rights and protection.
In today’s turbulent times, when it’s easy to feel powerless and overwhelmed, history reminds us of our strength, resilience, collective care, and creativity. We can unearth pathways that once seemed impossible and, by looking back, understand what we’re capable of now and for the future. Queer folks have always found a way, and part of that pathway is paved with the radical need to celebrate ourselves and our lives—together. As history shows, in the face of dark moments, they were crucial to our survival and a key component in resisting the forces that sought to erase us. The “Sundays at Café Tabac” documentary springs from this rich historical legacy.
BIRTH OF THE “SUNDAYS AT CAFÉ TABAC” DOCUMENTARY
The idea for our independent feature documentary film was inspired by the iconic Sunday night parties at Café Tabac in New York’s East Village—a beacon of booming ’90s lesbian nightlife. Café Tabac’s story expresses a rare moment where we saw each other—not hidden in the shadows of a dive bar from a bygone era, but warmly illuminated in a dinner club with white linen and stemware. Through personal narratives of its patrons who felt fully seen and uplifted in this space—whilst inspired by the expansive possibilities of lesbian identity discovered week after week—we explore its unique intersection between nightlife, activism and the unprecedented lesbian media visibility of the early ’90s.
Café Tabac drew a diverse cross-section of New York’s lesbian community, including artists, activists and (the newly coined) “celesbians,” where women of color felt especially celebrated and represented. The fact that the party’s hosts, Wanda Acosta and Sharee Nash, were Nuyorican-Latina and African American, was also a distinguished factor in this night’s impact. We all swayed together, wrapped in an invisible embrace of love, celebration, and community, as DJ Sharee’s soulful music filled the room. Conversations flowed, boundaries dissolved, and self-expression thrived—through bold experimentation, creative fashion, and the freedom to embrace one’s most authentic self with flair. The daring energy was infectious, radiating sexuality, beauty, and self-empowerment. Café Tabac’s notoriety spread worldwide. Its spirit of collective visibility and unapologetic self-expression extended beyond those Sunday nights.
This film will capture the electrifying spirit of the early ’90s lesbian movement through this iconic gathering. And how ultimately, Café Tabac’s enduring legacy lies in the deep connections it fostered, the lasting community it built, and the indelible mark it left on culture.
FILM PRODUCTION
The journey took us through 60+ original filmed interviews of Café Tabac co-hosts & patrons (which include filmmaker/activists Maria Maggenti, Rose Troche, Guinevere Turner, Catherine Gund; models Jenny Shimizu, Eve Salvail, Patricia Velazquez; writers Jacqueline Woodson, Sarah Schulman, Linda Villarosa, Hilton Als, Michael Musto; performers Lea Delaria, Marga Gomez; musicians Meshell Ndegeocello, the band BETTY; downtown & fashion icons Patricia Field, Edwige; and so many more). With so many stories shared, we discovered how that night alone, changed lives, created a community, and influenced LGBTQ history and culture at large.
We crafted thousands of hours of interviews into a 3-hour topical cut, which was then shaped into a 70-minute narrative cut by our award-winning editor, Rhys Ernst. In the narrative cut, the personal story arcs of four main characters emerged, whilst selected testimonials of the rest of the community provide chorus-like support and context. From the film’s present state, what lies ahead is…
These narratives will come to life through newly filmed re-enactments, never-before-seen archival footage, and creative animations—all areas we are currently seeking funding for. We are targeting end of 2025 for the film’s completion.
The story will also be underscored by an infectious film score by multi–Grammy-winning artist Meshell Ndegeocello. We began working with her in February 2025, and we’ve secured enough funding to complete the first half of the process with her. We still have to raise the second half.
Thus far, our project has been entirely community-funded, through crowdfunding, online campaigns, private donations, sponsorships, and lively fundraiser parties that brought our community together.
STEPPING INTO THE WORLD OF CAFÉ TABAC
Sunday nights at Café Tabac intrinsically is the story of VISIBILITY. Once we were able to see ourselves, unapologetically be our full selves, celebrating and being celebrated by each other, it fostered a profound personal empowerment—grounded in the power of community— that each person carried out into the world, igniting change across every sector of society.
“It’s hard to remember how incredible it was to see
lesbians anywhere in the mainstream world.”
Maria Maggenti
- SACT Interview
The unique difference was that this unapologetic queerness didn’t exist in just that room. It was not a ghetto-ized LGBTQ reality confined to gay Greenwich Village even. For the first time, those walls were porous and what we saw actualized in this room, was projected out into the world at large. The idea of being LGBTQ as a split reality that we are always conscious of editing in real time within ourselves, was beckoning towards a new reality. Lesbian visibility in the mainstream media was a phenomenon whose likes had never been seen before, and it was making an impact beyond our then-isolated communities. Additionally, many of the players in the public eye were also in the room on Sunday nights, further melting those boundaries.
“Media being there and also being on our side,
it made a huge difference for us.”
Lea DeLaria
- SACT Interview
HEIGHTENED LESBIAN VISIBILITY
Why were lesbians catapulted out into the spotlight, onto national covers, into primetime, into daylight, in the early ‘90s, more numerous and in a normalized and favorable way that we hadn’t seen before? The story projects us out onto the frontlines of the LGBTQ/AIDS activist and feminist movements. It takes us to “safe sex” campaigns, making visible our sexuality without apology. It transports us to a time when coming out of the closet was not just a matter of personal bravery but a national movement, and the articulation of “SILENCE=DEATH” was the result of our community literally disappearing before our very eyes. It was a time where we found an undeniable VOICE to our visibility; with transformations of anger and mourning, to celebration, connection and beauty. All of this as the language of ‘90s resistance, was what was being practiced, honed and realized at Café Tabac, in a very tactile way, in community.
RESISTANCE
Café Tabac is the story of radical glamour, and how our creative impulses can signal a challenge to the status quo, of not just survival, but a defiant and poetic celebration and expansion of one’s identity and community. Our film doesn’t contradict the need for media and digital reach that can exponentially expand and make accessible LGBTQ visibility, community and movements. “Sundays at Café Tabac” uncovers the idea that nightlife is visibility as a practice, a necessary in-person practice. And its impact can last decades after that “last call” on the night the party ended in 1995.
“The way that the gathering changed the world is, it gave us a strength I think we didn’t know we had. That we didn’t know we were building on by being in a space where there were mirrors for us.”
Jacqueline Woodson
- SACT Interview
THE PHYSICAL WORLD
The progress of our visibility in today’s mainstream media is undeniable, so the question remains, what happened to all that once-thriving lesbian nightlife? And the lingering question remains: does our growing disappearance in these physical spaces reflect continued gender-based disparities. What real progress has been made when increased media visibility doesn’t align with invisibility in real world landscapes?
Additionally, in the wake of the COVID pandemic with the world shutting down and humans physically isolated from each other, we wondered, will nightlife forever be dead? As we yearned more than ever to be together in complex tactile inter-relational physical existence, off the screens and monitors, out of the stale echo chambers of our media.
“We hugged each other. We kissed, we made eye contact. We had conversations of being in a room where you could smell each other and talk to each other and see each other across the room and know we are here.”
Deana Becker
- SACT Interview
With the unfathomable overturning of Roe v. Wade and “Don’t Say Gay” legislation passed as LAW in Florida—where our bodies and visibility are undeniably under attack—we can see how progress can suddenly be erased… how we can be DISAPPEARED. With the Florida legislation and school board book bans across the country, it is clear how important visibility is as a regular practice that we need to keep fighting for, in physical, media and virtual landscapes. It is not just a given. It is one of the many battlegrounds where we affirm our existence.
COMBATING INVISIBILITY
Visibility does in fact matter. As it was at Café Tabac, this film expands the practice of it. With the visibility of this film, we hope to shed light and further solidify important LGBTQ history, the hard fought battles won, and those still being waged. Through it we celebrate and emphasize Venusian themes and community-driven models of power offering a bold counterforce to patriarchy’s toxic, hyper-masculine, disconnected hierarchical systems that continue to attack our bodies, our children, our communities, our collective human spirit and our planet.
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“Sundays at Café Tabac” is a Women Make Movies Production Assistance Program Project.
Established in 1972, Women Make Movies is a 501(c)(3) non-profit media arts organization registered with the New York Charities Bureau of New York State. As the fiscal sponsor, WMM accepts donations or grants on behalf of the filmmaker and takes the responsibility of administering the funds received in support of the development and completion of the film.