Roughly 50 miles north of San Francisco, in Sonoma County, surrounded by towering redwoods, wide-stretched wineries, and the region’s famous Russian River, SF State alum Ryan White found inspiration in an unlikely place.

While working on his thesis film for SF State’s Cinema MFA program, White uncovered a unique form of LGBTQ+ history documented in the region. This discovery would guide his creative expressions for years to come. 

Before this discovery, White graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in cinema from SF State in 2003. He then lived abroad in Southeast Asia for eight years with his husband. During this time, Ryan worked for the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) Greater Mekong Program in Hanoi, Vietnam, and worked in freelance film in Bangkok, Thailand. 

However, White felt something was missing in his work. 

“I didn’t feel like I was harnessing my own voice,” White said. “I was working on a lot of projects that were all over the place; there wasn’t a whole lot of cohesion to my work. Coming back to San Francisco State for the MFA program, I really started exploring more queer stories and more queer history.”

While in SF State’s MFA program, his research led him to meet filmmakers and academics Jack Fritscher and his husband, Mark Henry who introduced him to their world of queer media.

Fritscher and Henry, based in Sonoma County, ran adult film production studio Palm Drive Video. White was inspired by content within these films. 

“There’s a lot of information that is important to be saved,” White said. “We often think of porn as only having one purpose.”

  “But when we look back at the 1970s, there is not a lot of documentation of queer lives, queer practices, queer people. There are these gaps in our understanding, in our histories, because we don’t necessarily have the primary documents that show us what was happening in the past,” White said.

Many of these films took place in Sonoma County on Fritscher and Henry’s ranch. Sonoma County has a rich history of LGBTQ+ individuals residing in and visiting the region, yet the community doesn’t have all the best documentation to show for it.

When White asked Fritscher and Henry if they had photos or videos of local men from the ‘70s who had come to the region, Mark handed White a stack of DVDs. “They had titles like, ‘Daddy’s Beer Belly in Bondage’ and ‘The Cheesiest Uncut Cock in West Texas,’” White said. 

Eccentric titles aside, White was shocked to find a profound focus on queer sex-positivity, even through the AIDS crisis, in these films. He also found that these films were first-hand documentation of life during a tumultuous period for the queer community.

When first exploring this media, the subject matter raised questions for White’s MFA professor, Johnny Symons. 

“Ryan proposed writing a research paper about queer porn and my initial reaction was, ‘I don’t know if that’s going to work because that’s not documentary,’” Symons said.

White, however, explained to Symons that queer porn served as documentation of a marginalized community not adequately represented in film throughout history. 

“It made me stop and rethink that, because he was right,” Symons said. “You take something that on its face seems very lurid and a little outrageous in what’s being shown visually on the screen. But, in fact, it’s a very human story and it has a universal audience.” 

White continued exploring the subject matter and co-directed ‘Raw! Uncut! Video!’, a film focused on Palm Drive Video’s history along with owners Fritscher and Henry’s love story. 

White met his co-director, who professionally goes by Alex C., in Sonoma County. The two now run a documentary-focused production company called Wohler Films. 

While working on ‘Raw! Uncut! Video!’ White and Alex C. worked with Richard Bernstein, aka Mickey Squires (his adult film star name). The two are now working alongside Bernstein on a film about his life.  

Bernstein was a queer model and adult film actor at the time of the AIDS crisis. “Ryan is very inquisitive and he asks very good questions,” Bernstein said. “What makes a good documentarian is that they can be good listeners … they’re really trying to make a good product, and you get enthusiasm in their energy they give off, it’s infectious. ” 

‘MICKEY & RICHARD’, a film about Bernstein, is set to release next year. While Bernstein didn’t anticipate creating this film with White and Alex C., his previous experience with them allowed him to trust they would tell his life story with care. “They make it so easy to be excited about the project because they are excited about the project,” Bernstein said. 

White recalls that his time in the MFA program at SF State motivated him to tell these seemingly niche stories that inspire awareness in others. 

Greta Snider, cinema professor at SF State, had White as a student in both his undergrad program and MFA program. “Something that I love about his work [is] he could be making movies about anything. He’s choosing to bring stories and people to light that need light shined on them,” Snider said.

 “I think what San Francisco State really helped me to discover about myself is that it’s okay to get really specific and it’s okay to go down a rabbit hole and tell what might seem like a very small story,” White said. “A lot of times, the more specific we get, the more community-oriented we get, the more opportunities we actually have for universal understanding.”