The Legacy of Jackson Heights - Celebrating and Mourning Julio Rivera

Community Programming

Richard Shpuntoff donated a screening of his 2016 documentary Julio of Jackson Heights on Friday, February 16, 2024 at Queensborough Performing Arts Center with support from Flushing Town Hall Arts Grants for Queens. Shpuntoff also provided QCC students free access to view the film for their coursework.

We are grateful to Dr. Faustino Quintanilla, Executive Director, and Grace Duran at the QCC Art Gallery for their vital partnership. While in residency at QCC, Richard Shpuntoff will share excerpts from his latest project with Film & Media Production students and faculty in the gallery’s screening room.

Richard Shpuntoff

Born and raised in Elmhurst, Queens, Richard Shpuntoff was the official photographer of Queens Pride for its first 20 years (1993 - 2012). In 2016, he completed the feature length documentary film ‘Julio of Jackson Heights,’ about the 1990 gay bashing murder of Julio Rivera, and its enormous impact on LGBTQIA+ organizing in Queens, which led directly to the creation of the Queens Pride Parade. The film premiered at the Queens World Film Festival where it won the Social Impact Award.

Starting in 2017, Shpuntoff has worked on a number of projects with the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives at LaGuardia Community College including providing over 40 photographs and two commissioned videos for the exhibition ‘The Lavender Line: Coming Out in Queens’ held at the Queens Museum in 2017. He worked directly with students in a sociology class on interviews of various figures who were directly involved in the controversy around the Children of the Rainbow Curriculum, a multicultural curriculum created in 1991 by the New York City Board of Education (now, Department of Education), that became the center of a controversy around acknowledging LGBTQIA+ people in elementary education. These interviews / recorded oral histories, along with 30 interviews that Shpuntoff conducted for the film, are available to students, educators, and researchers through the Archive.

Shpuntoff has received funding support from the Queens Council on the Arts for various projects in support of the Queens Pride Committee's work on building awareness and understanding of the history of Queens Pride. In 2016, he was awarded a ‘Special Honor for Service to the LGBTQIA+ Community of Queens for over two decades documenting and narrating the history of the community’s struggle’ by the Queens Borough President. His most recent film, ‘Everything that is Forgotten in an Instant,’ had its New York premiere at the documentary film festival of MoMA.

Fri Feb 16 at 2:30 pm: screening of ‘Julio of Jackson Heights’

Richard Shpuntoff will introduce his 2016 documentary prior to the screening at Queensborough Performing Arts Center (QPAC).

Performances presented by QPAC (Susan Agin, Executive Director) through the generous support of The Richmond County Bank Foundation New Initiatives Grant in partnership with Radio Drama Network (Melina Brown, President) & INTAR Theatre (Lou Moreno, Artistic Director)

Four FREE Live Professional Performances of a Radio Play version of Julio Ain’t Goin’ Down Like That by C. Julian Jiménez -

• Wed Feb 21 - 12:15PM performance

• Th Feb 22 - 7:00PM performance

• Fri Feb 23 - 7:00PM performance

• Sat Feb 24 - 7:00PM performance

It is the morning after the brutal murder of Julio Rivera, a gay Puerto Rican man in Jackson Heights, Queens. The murder became the first gay hate crime tried in New York State during the 1990s. In ‘Julio Ain’t Goin’ Down Like That,’ the community reacts and is taken on a journey of self-discovery by a fabulously unapologetic queen personifying the beauty and brutality of Jackson Heights.

C. Julian Jiménez is a Queer, Puerto Rican and Dominican playwright. They hold an MFA in Acting from The Actors Studio Drama School. Playwriting awards include: New Dramatists Residency (Class of 2027), 2019/2020 Rita Goldberg Playwrights' Workshop Fellow at The Lark, 2017 & 2018 Pipeline Theatre Company PlayLab, 2018 LaGuardia Community College’s LGBTQIA+ History Project Grant, 2015 Queens Arts Council Grant, 2009 Public Theater Emerging Writers Group, and 2014 Best New Work Motif Award. Productions include: ‘Man Boobs’ (Pride Films & Plays, 2011), ‘Nico was a Fashion Model’ (Counter-Productions, 2013), ‘Animals Commit Suicide’ (First Floor Theater, 2015), ‘Locusts Have No King’ (INTAR, 2016), ‘Bundle of Sticks’ (INTAR, 2020), ‘Alligator Mouth, Tadpole Ass’ (Theatre Rhinoceros, 2020), ‘¡Oso Fabuloso & The Bear Backs!’ (INTAR, 2021), 'Bruise & Thorn' (Pipeline Theatre, 2021), and ‘Ronald Reagan Murdered My Mentors’ (Fuse Theater Ensemble, 2023). They are a co-producer and co-writer of the hit web series, ‘Bulk,’ and an Associate Professor and Chair of the Communication, Theatre, & Media Production Department at Queensborough Community College.

Talkbacks following the first three performances of ‘Julio Ain’t Goin’ Down Like That’ presented by CUNY LGBTQIA+ Consortium & KHC at QPAC

• Wed Feb 21 following the 12:15PM performance
  Alumni Panel: QCC Theatre Alumni will reflect on their experience collaborating on ‘Julio’ 
  Christopher Aldea, Javi Delez, Joseph Distl, Geovanny Guzman, Vasilios Leon, and Jimena Lucero, moderated by Jess Kreisler, QCC Alum & Adjunct Faculty

• Th Feb 22 following the 7:00PM performance
  Art as Archive: Celebration and Protest
  Dr. Laura Cohen, Executive Director of the Kupferberg Holocaust Center (KHC), moderates a discussion between documentarian Richard Shpuntoff and playwright C. Julian Jiménez

• Fri Feb 23 following the 7:00PM performance
  Education and Activism
  Daniel Dromm, former member of the NYC Council. and C. Julian Jiménez, playwright, in conversation