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Read the press release here.

Film About Gay Man Killed in Jackson Heights to Screen Later This Month

By Katie Honan | October 12, 2015 7:51am
 Julio Rivera was killed by a group of skinheads who set out to find a gay man. 
Julio Rivera was killed by a group of skinheads who set out to find a gay man. 
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DNAinfo/Katie Honan / "Julio of Jackson Heights"

JACKSON HEIGHTS — A documentary about the murder of Julio Rivera in Jackson Heights, and how it became a turning point for the community, will be screened later this month.

Director Richard Shpuntoff is showing "Julio of Jackson Heights" at The CUNY Graduate Center's CLAGS: Center for LGBTQ Studies, on Oct. 16.

He'll also answer questions about the film after the screening.

Rivera was beaten to death on July 2, 1990 in the P.S. 69 schoolyard by three men who were affiliated with a skinhead gang, according to reports at the time. They set out that night to attack a gay man, looking for one on 37th Avenue, which was the location of many unreported hate crimes in the past. 

His brutal murder is seen as a turning point for the gay residents of Jackson Heights, "the beginning of the change that we saw in the borough of Queens,” Councilman Danny Dromm told DNAinfo New York in July. 

In a clip from the documentary, neighbors tell stories of other gay men who had been murdered in Jackson Heights in the 1970s and 1980s. Those murders went unsolved and many families didn't push the investigations further.

But Rivera's family and friends fought to bring his case to justice, refusing to believe the police account of his death.

Their persistence helped spark the neighborhood's annual pride parade and other activism throughout the borough.

Shpuntoff began photographing the annual parade and later decided to document Rivera's story, and its significance to Jackson Heights. 

Tickets to the screening are free and available online. 

See a clip from the film: