Not a Tame Lion

2022 · 118 min

If the inspiration for the Da Vinci Code’s Robert Langdon were drawn from a single living person, John Boswell would have been the one. Boswell read and translated 14 ancient and modern languages, became a Yale Professor by age 30 and was granted full access to the highly classified and restricted Vatican archives from which he researched four award winning books, making him a world renowned expert in Medieval History and Linguistics. John Boswell was also openly Gay without apology in an era that was neither tolerant nor accepting. NOT A TAME LION offers the first-hand accounts of Boswell’s closest friends, students, colleagues and family members as they recount his life, his works and his final days during which he feverishly worked to complete SAME SEX UNIONS IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE a book that changed the trajectory of the Marriage Equality debate, all while privately battling the debilitating effects of AIDS which led to his death on December 24th 1994 at the age of forty-seven.

Directed by Craig Bettendorf