In Wilmington in 1990, 32-year-old lesbian Talana Kreeger was brutally murdered. Tab Ballis, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, has been working on a film to tell Talana's story for 10 years: Park View ("Park View" was the name of the lesbian bar where Talana met her murderer on Carolina Beach Road). The initiating director of the film was Ingrid Jungermann, former Wilmington resident who is now an award-winning filmmaker in New York. The soundtrack is by Wilmington singer/songerwriter Laura McLean.
Talana Kreeger's story is part of the book Unfinished Livesby Steven Sprinkle, narrating the stories of 12 people who lost their lives to LGBT hate crimes (Matthew Shepard is the most widely known of the victims). Tab Ballis and the Park View team hope to create a series telling all the stories from Sprinkle's book after Park View is complete.
Listen above to our aired interview with Tab Ballis, and below to two Web Extras-the first is about the media coverage of the murder in 1990, and the second is about the formation of St. Jude's Metropolitan Community Church in 1992.
Park View Project is having an online fundraiser through Seeds & Sparks; the fundraising page features the film trailer and a plethora of information about the project. The fundraiser ends on October 13.
The brutality and violence associated with the crime created a domino effect: panic became fear became isolation became a breakdown of community. LGBT men and women, already marginalized, fragmented into more divisions – young, old, closeted, out, single, partnered…tragically isolated from each other. This film will examine the alienation that results from historical trauma, and question its inevitability. -Tab Ballis
