2022 Nominees

Cured

Production Company: Story Center Films, LLC and Singer & Deschamps Productions, Inc. in association with ITVS

Produced for: Independent Television Service (ITVS) / Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)

Executive Producer (Production Company): Mel Heifetz, Jeff Nalin, Cole Rucker, Andrew Tobias

Executive Producer (network/platform): Lois Vossen (Independent Lens/PBS), Sally Jo Fifer (ITVS)

Country or Territory where first released: Sweden

Synopsis:

Mentally ill. Deviant. And in need of a cure.

These were among the terms psychiatrists used to describe lesbians and gay men in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. According to the medical establishment, every gay person—no matter how well-adjusted—suffered from a mental disorder. And as long as lesbians and gay men were “sick,” progress toward equality was impossible.

CURED takes viewers inside the David-versus-Goliath struggle that led the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its manual of mental illnesses in 1973—a crucial victory in the modern movement for LGBTQ equality. Combining newly unearthed archival materials with first-person testimony from participants, CURED is about science overcoming prejudice and about the process of creating social change. The diverse group of activists involved in this fight brought about a revolutionary shift that transformed not only LGBTQ people’s perceptions of themselves, but also the social fabric of America.