Gay Marriage Passes First Phase in New Zealand
New Zealand passed the first stage of a national gay marriage law yesterday. Grateful that THE SKIN I’M IN could be a part of this year’s Out Takes New Zealand Film Festival.
Totem Pole’s Thunderbird Brings Rain to the Netherlands
Rande and his team are now in Leiden, completing and installing the first ever totem pole in the Netherlands for the Museum Volkenkunde. Rande reports:
I put the wings on kwanusila today, he came alive!!
Thunder and lightening all over holland now!!He has awakened… 😉
Website for Our New Project Zen & the Art of Dying Now Live
I’m excited to announce my next documentary project DEATHWALKER which is a documentary on Australian Natural Death Center founder Zenith Virago. We’ll also be producing a Natural Death Web Initiative to provide a space for personal stories, practical support materials, and global conversation about natural death care.
Not sure what natural death care is? Check out the project Website:
http://zenandtheartofdying.com
For those of you in Byron Shire, Australia, we’ll be there all of November and December filming. Check out the “Get Involved/Tell Your Story” page, and let me know if you wish to participate!
Things Girls Do… a decade later
One of my first films THINGS GIRLS DO… seeks to address questions of body dysmorphia and gender. The film was made in a pre-YouTube world, back in 2001. In 2008, I decided to post it on YouTube to see what sort of digital life it might have. This has led to its engagement and circulation within two online communities in particular.
One is a cohort of body-dysmorphic individuals of both genders who simultaneously use YouTube as a site to perpetuate their disorders via “thinspiration” videos and also to seek out help and recovery. This has made me metidate on the fac that digital democracy is in many ways a double-edged sword, capable of forming communities of healing and of more ambivalent, even harmful consequence.
The second is a community of female-to-male transgender individuals, who have expressed that the video’s formal/metaphorical journey resonate with their literal transformations. These men show the possibility of YouTube as a forum for interpersonal support and information sharing. They correspond and post their lives in public view of anyone with access to an Internet browser, simultaneously challenging cultural and YouTube community assumptions about digital identity, questions of embodiment, and the possibilities for ethical and open online conversation and relationship.
I’d love to get your impressions on the film and on the double-edged possibilities for digital democracy.
Community as Family: Father’s Letter Disowning Gay Son Goes Viral
One of the reasons the idea of a gay community is so important becomes clear in this letter from a father disowning his gay son. Our family units are such a vital foundation for a sense of identity and place, and even in 2012, this letter (http://huff.to/MPEk1A) serves as a painful reminder of the number of LGBT young people who are still denied as sense of family and home. For so many LGBT individuals, a real sense of family comes from a cohort of individuals who support and love them beyond any biological ties—families of their own design. I’m lucky to have both iterations of family in my life. My own parents and their amazing growth and continued support figure centrally in THE SKIN I’M IN. I hope their example can serve as a source of strength and guidance to other parents struggling to come to terms with the identity and essential nature of their child.
THE SKIN I’M IN to have East Asian Premiere at DMZ DOCS
THE SKIN I’M IN will have its East Asian premiere at the 2012 DMZ Korean International Documentary Festival. DMZ DOCS is held in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea and seeks to use this symbolic space to explore possibilities for ‘peace’ and ‘communication’ demonstrated via a select program of international documentary stories.
Tattoo artist Zulu Featured in LA Times as first African American president of NoHo Freemason Lodge
Zulu, the amazing tattoo artist featured in THE SKIN I’M IN is a Freemason, breaking down perceptions about the Masons and their membership.
“Zulu became curious about Freemasonry after tattooing Masonic symbology on several clients. He joined five years ago at age 39 and now serves as webmaster and senior warden of North Hollywood Lodge No. 542. He has also gone on to become both a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner (Masonic membership is a prerequisite for both), and next year he will become the leader of his lodge. ‘I’ll be the first black worshipful master in the lodge’s history,’ he said, using the proper term of respect.”
Read more at: http://www.latimes.com/features/image/la-ig-masons18-2008may18,0,42602.story
Eagle Scouts Return Medals to BSA in Protest of Discriminatory Policies
FYI, I’m a recovering Eagle Scout as well. It’s precisely this sort of “normalized” bigotry and exclusion experienced by so many of us at young ages that creates the sense of alienation from self and others which THE SKIN I’M IN seeks to expose and challenge.
Watch Boy Scouts Uphold Policy to Exclude Gay Youth on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.
Rande Cook Tapped to Carve First Totem Pole in the Netherlands
THE SKIN I’M IN featured artist Rande Cook has been commissioned to carve what will be the Netherlands’ first and only totem pole for the Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden. See photos and videos of the carving progress on the Museum Volkenkunde website or in the U’mista Cultural Society Facebook album.
THE SKIN I’M IN Best Documentary Score Finalist
Producer Lee Biolos, composer Ronit Kirchman, and I were up in Park CIty, Utah this weekend for the Park City Film Music Festival, where THE SKIN I’M IN was a finalist for BEST DOCUMENTARY SCORE. The festival featured short and feature-length films from around the globe with an emphasis on the artistry of the film composer.
