Not Throwing In The Towel is a documentary about Ginny Farrugia and Debbie Carter, a lesbian couple living in western Kentucky, that recently premiered at Maiden Alley Cinema. Tracy Ross spoke with the film’s director, Sandra Pfeifer, on Sounds Good.
Pfeifer says producer Johanna Rhodes, who had formed a close relationship with Ginny and Debbie as a friend and mentor, approached her about documenting the couple’s story. She wanted to make a call to action to accept people no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation and to help break down social inequality. Pfeifer says the couple’s story is made even more compelling by the rural, southern setting, which will give it more significance when screened in cosmopolitan areas where there is less social stigma around homosexuality.
“It [is] a really enriching and entertaining and loving 30 minutes sharing a couples’ life and commitment to each other and understanding more about, historically, a social injustice. The treatment of homosexuals, from very early on, start going back to Puritan days, was deplorable, really. And I don’t think there’s a real consciousness about it,” Pfeifer said. “I think that you would leave with a consciousness of understanding something that we’re not taught and we don’t really know. And at the same time understanding that there’s no good reason to have that kind of, to be treated like that.”