In 1994 NAMBLA was expelled from the International Lesbian and Gay Association, having been the first US-based organization to be a member. Chicken Hawk: Men Who Love Boys was produced and directed by Adi Sideman in 1994. Members of NAMBLA were interviewed and presented defenses of the organization. Allen Ginsberg appeared in the film............
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http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/08/movies/film-review-men-who-love-boys-explain-themselves.html
Adi Sideman's crude documentary "Chicken Hawk: Men Who Love Boys," has an inflammatory title that belies its even-handed portrait of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, the notorious pedophile organization better known as Nambla.
The film, which opens today at Cinema Village, is built around interviews with several men whose professed objects of desire are youths under the legal age of consent. One after another, they defend themselves against the view of Nambla as an organization of sadistic child molesters and pornographers, arguing that Nambla is a civil rights organization opposed to the age-of-consent laws. The more outspoken among them talk of child liberation in a "sexophobic" society.
Nambla's opponents, like Tom McDonough, who founded a conservative action group called Straight Kids U.S.A., are also heard from. Mr. McDonough is shown yelling "Baby-raper!" in a demonstration outside the apartment of a Nambla member. Participants in the 1993 gay and lesbian march on Washington express chagrin at having a Nambla contigent march in their ranks. And a Nambla member, Renato Corazzo, is shown monitoring obscene hate messages on the organization's hot line.
Nambla, founded in 1978, claims a membership of around 1,500. Besides the hot line, it publishes a monthly newsletter illustrated with photos of pubescent boys.
Among those interviewed is Peter Melzer, a teacher at the Bronx High School of Science who was suspended from his job when it became known that he was a Nambla member. Mr. Melzer says he has never broken the law.
The film's most outspoken and vivid personality, Leyland Stevenson, was imprisoned several years ago for distributing child pornography. He describes his sexual relations with boys in the quasi-religious language of a persecuted fanatic. He even allows the camera to show him cruising in a suburban mini-mall. From his attitude of messianic hauteur, it is clear why Mr. Stevenson was chased out of his West Virginia town. And his creepy grandiosity casts a clammy chill over the film.
"Red Light, Green Light," the short film that accompanies "Chicken Hawk," teaches children to identify adult strangers who may be molesters. It presents a series of scenarios it calls "red light" situations in which a stranger's advances should send up warning alarms. CHICKEN HAWK Men Who Love Boys
Directed and produced by Adi Sideman; director of photography and editor, Nadav Harel; music by Franck and Ravel. Running time: 55 minutes. RED LIGHT, GREEN LIGHT
Directed by Bill Brose; written by Michael Halbern; director of photography, Phil Lohmann; edited by Mark Snegoff. Running time: 20 minutes. Both films released by Stranger Than Fiction Films. At Cinema Village, 22 East 12th Street, East Village. These films are not rated.
Photo: Renato Corazza (Stranger Than Fiction Film)