AllMovie

The oldest known "out" African-American lesbian remembers ten colorful decades in this hour-long documentary, which won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the San Francisco International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in 1999. Born July 23, 1899, in Springfield, IL, Ruth Ellis spent most of her life in Detroit. A pioneering independent black businesswoman, she operated her own print shop until the age of 65. In the home she shared with Cecilene "Babe" Franklin, her partner of more than 30 years, she played host to innumerable gatherings of the city's African-American gays and lesbians in an age when segregation excluded them from white homosexual society. A participant in the civil rights movement and a witness of the riots that tore Detroit apart in the 1960s, Ellis later became an icon for, and active participant in, the city's multicultural lesbian and feminist community. Interviews with Ellis depict the 100-year-old as a great dancer, a charming conversationalist, and a living repository of social history. Writer, director, and producer Yvonne Welbon also includes archival footage of the time periods Ellis recalls, as well as dramatic reenactments of key events in her life. A number of Ellis' friends and acquaintances also appear. Ruth Ellis died at the age of 101, on October 5, 2000, just a year after the film that celebrated her life played at film festivals around the country.