Wolfe announced this past week that Alden Peters’
first-person documentary, Coming Out, will be making its DVD
debut on Oct. 4.
Alden Peters is a “filmmaker,” he holds a BFA in film
production from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and had done
additional academic work at the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba in Havana, Cuba. All of this before embarking on a film career
that has seen him work as a camera operator, a cinematographer, do some film
editing and even production. He can be
called something of a “jack of all trades” when it comes to the art of
filmmaking; in a sense, he’s well grounded.
Alden is also gay, but he discovered that there’s no school
for “coming out.” He also discovered
that there was precious little about the subject in his world of filmmaking
beyond the dramatic stories. So he hits
upon a novel idea, why not film the process … the result is Coming
Out, a film which literally took on a life of its own over a period of
several years.
During the filmmaking process, he not only captured the
revelations of his family members (some surprised, so not so much), but others
within the LGBT community contributed their own experiences, which were
incorporated into the narrative.
Overcoming self-imposed stereotypes and learned social pressures
can be, for the individual, as daunting as an obstacle as simply saying, “I’m
gay.” Alden’s film really gets to the
core of that.
The film has worked the festival circuit to great buzz and
has wins at DocUtah, Ellensburg Film Festival, Festival MIX Milano and
more. Wolfe is presenting two viewing
options — the documentary itself and a two-part presentation of the content
that is geared for classroom discussions.
No comments:
Post a Comment