Review: For Those Who Were There, 'The Unlikely Story Of The Lesbians Of First Friday' is a Happy Trip Down Memory Lane

"The Unlikely Story Of The Lesbians Of First Friday" is a very personal story for filmmaker Kathryn L Beranich, as she was part of a small group of lesbians in the small city of Roanoke, Virginia, who socialized together in the 1980s.�There were huge feminist movements elsewhere in the USA, but for the most part, these mainly white, privileged, closeted women were focused only on exploring their sexuality.

In this macho Reagan era these women, who were attracted to the rural area of the Roanoke Valley, found great delight in discovering other women like themselves.� At first, their only opportunity for socializing was a scruffy basement gay bar where they were expected to sign in and where there was little chance of any fruitful encounters.

However, there was a local restaurant run by two�women who were persuaded to set aside their venue once a month for a "private party" for the burgeoning group of lesbians to meet. It gained its name "The First Friday," as that is how often the group met, and they were so paranoid about being discovered they didn't want anything to give away the real nature of their meetings.

These were pure social events, as even if the world outside had a political agenda these women simply wanted a bolt hole where they could meet other lesbians.�Then, when the night was over, most of them went back to their solitary lives in the "straight world" - some even to their husbands.

Beranich's low-budget film pieces it together with archival footage and a series of interviews with women who had been part of the group and were eager to share that this period had been a highlight of their lives.�Some of their accounts add humorously to myths about lesbians; one recalls being dressed up in her best girly party clothes, only to discover all the other women where dressed in flannel plaids.

The meetings morphed into camping weekends which existed if they didn't tell the landowners that they were lesbians. Sadly, when they tried to be open about their true nature with a women-owned campsite, they were rejected flat-out.

However, without formal leadership, the group seem to dissipate when they couldn't agree on the slightest thing, let alone a way to move forward. Eventually, it fell apart, especially as the next generation of lesbians were much more open about their sexuality and their political aspirations.

To the women who were there, this is a happy trip down memory lane, but this will probably not mean much to the rest of the LGBTQ community.