Sandi Dubowski is a classmate and old friend of The Monk and Wongdoer. He looks basically the same now as he did then, whereas The Monk is fatter and Wongdoer is beaten down and tore up.
The Monk remembers playing basketball with him, Wongdoer and another Monkfriend after hanging out in Brooklyn. We got along well -- and you can easily tell from his bio that Dubowski's politics are not allied with that of The Monk or Wongdoer. The Monk also remembers riding the subway with Dubowski and another friend one afternoon when the other friend interrogated Dubowski and excoriated him for not engaging in (ahem) amorous activities with a female classmate who presented Dubowski with opportunity, means and explicit consent one night after the high school's repertory company's cast party. Dubowski's reason for abstinence later became quite clear.
In college, Dubowski came out of the closet (at least to those of us who did not know otherwise) in an emotional article chronicling his inner struggles with his own homosexuality in one of Harvard's underground newspapers. He became active in ACT-UP and other homosexual-activist organizations. He is now a filmaker, and a controversial one at that. His first notoriety arose from his documentary about gay Orthodox Jews, Trembling Before G-d. Now he's set his sights on another religion:
Sandi Dubowski, who won the Teddy gay and lesbian award in 2001 for his controversial doc[umentary] "Trembling Before G-d," may cause an even bigger stir with "In the Name of Allah," which explores the struggles of homosexual Muslims.
It takes no small amount of courage to produce a film on this subject in the face of the prejudice and violence that can result. But as his coming out article 16+ years ago indicated, Dubowski has long since mastered any crises of courage.
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