Harvey Milk's words will come to haunt us all now, for sure.

The gay rights pioneer who is featured in the Gus Van Sant biopic film Milk will have a second debut of sorts at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

In the short film 575 Castro Street, the set of the Castro Camera Store used in the film plays as visual backdrop to the contents of a recording made by Milk just a few weeks after his election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors made him one of the first openly gay elected men in the United States. The audio cassette labeled “In Case” has been whittled down to just under six minutes.

Director Jenni Olson's no-frills visuals of the camera store that Milk built helps the viewer focus on Milk's haunting words being played thirty years after his murder.

“This is Harvey Milk,” the audio begins, “speaking from the camera store on the evening of Friday November 18. This is to be played only in the event of my death by assassination. I fully realize that a person who stands for what I stand for ... an activist – gay activist – becomes the target or the potential target for somebody who is scared, terrified, afraid or very disturbed themselves.”

Shadows and reflections from passing cars seen through the window of the camera shop are the only visible signs of movement in an otherwise still frame.

“I have never considered myself a candidate,” Milk later says, “I have always considered myself part of a movement. Part of a candidacy. I consider the movement the candidate.”

Milk says that what he would like to see is for gays and lesbians to have the courage to be free and open about their sexuality. “Coming out ... That would do more to end prejudice overnight than anybody could ever imagine ... Come out ... Only that way will we start to achieve our rights.”

And closes with the dream that the gay movement, which was just starting to reach for the light of day the night he recorded himself in 1977, continues to grow. “Because last week I got that phone call from Altoona, Pennsylvania. And my election gave somebody else, one more person, hope. And after all that's what it's all about. It's not about personal gain, it's not about ego, it's not about power. It's about giving those young people out there in Altoona, Pennsylvanias hope. You gotta give 'em hope.”

On the Net: View the short at 575 Castro Street.