A Complicated Road to Love
BY JOHN TANASYCHUK
South Florida Sun-Sentinel - Thursday - April 25, 2002

When Ruth Berman and Connie Kurtz stand before the audience at the fourth Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival on Saturday afternoon, they’ll have come a very long way from their first meeting more than 40 years ago.

In 1958, they were doing what many women of the ‘50s did: marriage and children, Berman had three children. Kurtz two. Their friendship grew. and together, they became community activists in their Brooklyn neighborhood. A new junior high school was built. A synagogue came to serve the growing Jewish community. An area that once was a dumping ground for illegal polluters is now a park. 

They did alot of good work.

While it’s difficult to say when these best friends became lovers and life partners. in 1974 Berman and Kurtz ‘challenged their fundamental belief systems.’ left their families and built the relationship that filmmaker Deborah Dickson documents in Ruthie and Connie: Every Room in the House.

Ruthie and Connie: Every Room in theHouse will be shown at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the Colony Theatre, 1040 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach. The Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival runs Friday through May 5 at the Colony and the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, 174 B. Flagler St., Miami. The festival’s first family day is May 4, when several films about growing up and raising children will be shown. There will be free child care, balloons for kids and child-friendly refreshments. For schedule information and tickets, go to www.miamigaylesbianfilm.com or call 305-534-9924. Tickets also may be purchased at the Colony and Gusman box offices, or through Ticketmaster at www.ticketmaster.com or 305-358-5885 or 954-523- 3309. First-come, first-served rush tickets are also available one hour prior to each screening.

Ruthie and Connie tells the story of how two New York Jewish housewives found a new life together.