FILM SYNOPSIS

Ted & Noel (2023) | 25 mins
Ted Brown, an iconic 72-year-old activist of Jamaican heritage, has spent his adult life fighting for queer and black identities. As millions celebrate London Pride’s 50th anniversary, Ted is adoring the attention around the landmark event he helped to create. But hidden behind the photoshoots and ceremonies is an angry, grieving man. Ted has just lost the love of his life, Noel, to dementia. Worse, Noel had experienced severe homophobic abuse from care home staff during his final days, leaving Ted to question the true impact of his own activism. Through the media buzz, the boozy awards, the grief counselling sessions and the lonely nights, our coming-of-age documentary follows grief-stricken Ted in the months leading up to Noel’s 1st anniversary. Can Ted find the strength to mount one last campaign for LGBTQ+ rights?

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Julia Alcamo
Julia is a German-American documentary filmmaker seeking to tell emotive stories in captivating ways. Following her own mother’s battle with cancer, Perrücke demonstrates her uncompromising commitment to capturing the rawness of love, trauma, and grief up close. Her multimedia pandemic project All We Havewas featured on CNN and had a physical incarnation at the Dadian Gallery in Washington DC. Julia works both as a self-shooter and with crews, having led international film teams in the UK, Japan, India, and Germany. She has also series produced and directed archive-based documentary series for BBC World and Sky History. Her work has been nominated for a Grierson award and at international film festivals including Iris Prize and DOCNYC.

Ted Brown
Ted Brown is a lifelong LGBTQ+ and civil rights activist. He was born in New York to Jamaican parents and came to the UK in 1959, aged 9. He was one of the early members of the UK Gay Liberation Front (GLF) where he helped organise the first ever Pride march in London in 1972. Through his activism Ted met -and fell in love with -Noel. Together and alongside each other they continued their activist work for almost 50 years until Noel was diagnosed with dementia at the end of 2016 and passed away in 2021. After watching his partner suffer at the hands of homophobic and abusive care home staff, Ted has spearheaded a new campaign called “Not Going into the Care Closet”. He wants to fight for the rights of LGBTQ+ people in the care system and draw attention to the issue countrywide.

Fez
Fez (she/her) is a Doctoral researcher in Education at the University of Sussex, and part of the network of scholars at the Stuart Hall Foundation. She is particularly interested in how marginalised groups experience education and is driven by social justice. Fez has written about race, gender, and intersectional environmentalism for academic articles, magazines, and blogs. She is an Editorial Associate and Community Contributor at the Critical Race Theory Collective, who are “a Community of international, interdisciplinary and intersectional scholar-activists who are committed to cultivating knowledge and information across borders”. Additionally, she is a co-founder of SHY Collective, which aims to make academic work more accessible by challenging educational and academic structures. Fez is a member of the Lighthouse Future Creative Leaders cohort.

PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEO DURING EVENT

Please note, that this event will be photographed/filmed. If you prefer not to be photographed please speak to a member of the Lighthouse team. The photographs and film we capture at our events are used for marketing and promotional purposes for our programme only and are stored securely.

ACCESSIBILITY

This event will be held on the ground floor, level access, of Lighthouse Project Space, New England House, Elder Place, York Hill Corner, BN1 4GH.

We have step-free access just to the left of our space. The step-free ramp is 1 metre wide, after the ramp you reach a blue door please use the 'Lighthouse' doorbell, one of the team will come to let you in and you will then go through a door that is 34 in / 86.5cm wide and after that another door in to the space that is 33.5 in / 85cm wide. There is an accessible toilet in the space on the same floor. We have one accessible parking space that must be booked in advance. For further information email info@lighthouse.org.uk or call 01273 647197.

Watch our video on the step-free access at Lighthouse Project Space. We are fundraising to adapt our entrance, so that everyone enters our space through the same door.

Future Creative Leaders (FCL) is a 12-month paid programme offering young creatives from underrepresented backgrounds the opportunity to work closely with Lighthouse's leadership team to explore various aspects of creative leadership. Funded and supported by Art Fund’s ‘Reimagine Grants’ and Chalk Cliff Trust, over the year, participants will co-curate programmes, select participants for mini-residencies, and recruit their successors, all while exploring alternative governance structures, accountability, and power-sharing.