We Came to Sweat

Paint it Again explores the home shared by a woman and her late partner for over 40 years. Now the home of only one surviving partner, the space has become museum-like. Meticulously arranged and decorated, the house is full of objects like artifacts that hold memories and hint at a life shared in this space, a life that is now gone.

The battle for LGBTQ rights hasn’t only been fought on the streets of coastal cities; it has also taken place on dirt roads, campuses, and in the homes of rural America. In this new short documentary—released 50 years after the Stonewall riots, which brought LGBTQ rights into the national consciousness—gay men living in central Tennessee, and their families, share stories of struggle and self-acceptance. We meet the retiree who spent his entire professional life in the closet, his devoted partner of 20 years, a pastor determined to overcome his own prejudices, and the pastor’s gay son, newly in love and just starting to come into his own.