Product Description
Award-winning documentarian Dan Hunt has created a delightful, intimate—and surprising—portrait of what it means to be a maturing gay man in the new millennium. BEAR run tracks the contemporary rituals, language, values and evolving aesthetic of bear culture, by following three characters as they romp through the 2006-2008 event circuit Bear Albany, International Bear Rendezvous, Bear Week – Provincetown, Bear Trek and Lazy Bear Weekend… among others.
BEAR run celebrates the BEAR community through the moving and compelling stories of Mikhael, Louie and Mike.
Their personal stories of coming out, dealing with body image and searching for community will move and challenge you. They offer a new way to look at the bear community.
For the uninitiated, Bears are a diverse community of men whose body types often defy the buff-gym-body-ideal seen plastered across mainstream gay culture. Bears embrace their body, their large and hairy physiques—hence the name Bear. And the playful naming doesn’t stop there—there is also the cub, chaser, polar, otter, panda, black, chub, muscle, daddy, sugar, trans, pocket and wolf. This rapidly growing community comes complete with its own language, customs, code system, and pride flag.
For the initiated, Bear Runs are gatherings across the world where the Bear community comes together to love, fi ght, fl irt, challenge, empower, compete, heal, dream, play and hug amidst the campy and wonderfully kitschy backdrop that is the bear community. Every weekend of the year you can fi nd a welcoming BEAR RUN to go to.
A diverse bear pack--Mike (black bear) and his partner John (classic bear), Mikhael (daddy bear) and Louie (Mr. International Cub) share one thing in common, they all have found mainstream gay culture to be unwelcoming and now are looking for acceptance and seeking community. One character tests the openness of bear culture about gender issues to see if it lives up to its values of acceptance and camaraderie. Can you guess who?