Silvia Baraldini moved to the U.S. in the 1960’s at the height of the Civil Rights Movement and came of age in a country burning in its own promise.  Moved by African American’s fight for human rights and incensed by the show of pretense in American democracy, Silvia began a life of political activism.

In the 1970’s when hundreds of politically minded people folded back into the comforts of American society, Silvia deepened her conviction to revolutionary struggle. She became the national leader of the May 19th Communist Organization, a radical group of white, North Americans.  May 19th was a key element in a fragile but growing alliance of revolutionaries, African American, Puerto Rican and white who worked relentlessly to organize people to view the U.S. Imperialist system as the leading source of world oppression.  Most threatening to the government was their support for the Republic of New Afrika, a group of African Americans fighting to win land in the south on which to build a socialist nation under Black rule.  Members of the alliance were targets of the U.S. government’s counter insurgency program, COINTELPRO.  Using an array of tactics, the government put an end to the alliance; many political activists were arrested and imprisoned.  In 1983, Silvia was indicted and convicted under the RICO conspiracy law for helping to free Assata Shakur (a Black revolutionary) from prison.  Additionally she was charged with criminal contempt of court for refusing to answer questions to a Grand Jury investigating the Puerto Rican Independence Movement.  Silvia was given a 43-year prison sentence.  In 1999, after 17 years in U.S. prisons, she won the right to serve out her sentence in her homeland, Italy.  Within six months of her transfer to a prison in Rome, she was diagnosed with cancer and granted house arrest.  In September 2006, having been incarcerated since 1982, Silvia Baraldini was granted her freedom.  Our documentary presents Silvia’s side of the story, the side that was not supposed to be told.

It’s hard to know where Scott Townsend ends and Thirsty Burlington begins.  You might say that one wears pants and the other struts around in sequined gowns.  Except that there are times when Scott, pants and all, makes lyrical gestures with arms white as swans, lowers his eyelids with an ingratiating nod and you’d swear you were talking to Thirsty, so who is it that’s in drag anyway?  Scott/Thirsty would say, "Just relax and come along for the ride."  Female impersonator Scott Townsend, a.k.a. Thirsty Burlington transforms without the encumbrance of analysis.  His gender is playful like a slide whistle and life saving like a switchblade.  It’s part of what he uses to get through.  The upcoming Thin Edge Films feature, Thirsty is the true-life story of a good soul side stepping our insistence on believing in opposites.