documentaries

Mississippi Queen is a new documentary film that investigates one family's struggle with "ex-gay" ministries and the reality of being gay. The film, created by Paige Williams, involves a woman, her partner, and their son living a happy life in spite of her parents' creation of an "ex-gay" ministry.

Williams and her partner of 10 years are raising their son in Missoula, Montana - a relatively progressive town. Jack was born via artificial insemination.

Her parents are founders of In His Time - an “ex-gay” ministry.

Imagine being called an abomination by Anita Bryant or Jimmy Swaggart.

Life hasn’t been easy for members of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgenders (PFLAG) anywhere, including Southwest Florida, but “For the Bible Tells Me So,” an award-winning documentary released in 2007, indicates that it has vastly improved.

The Rev. Bishop Desmond Tutu, the Rev. Bishop Gene Robinson and former U.S. Congressman Dick Gephardt all defend divine and human rights to exist as one chooses.

The Canadian Film and Television Production Association has voted Fatherhood Dreams one of the top five Canadian documentaries of 2008. The documentary follows four gay men as they explore different options to attain their journey toward parenthood - Randy and Drew turn to adoption, Stephen co-parents his two daughters with a lesbian couple, and Scott prepares for the arrival of his twins through surrogacy.

Steve, Scott, Drew, and Randy are fathers who happen to be gay. They fulfilled their desire to be parents through adoption, surrogacy and co-parenting. But being a gay parent requires a unique set of tools to deal with the legal and emotional issues involved.

NewsBlaze reviews Meema Spadola's film about kids of lesbian and gay parents.

Spadola's documentary - called Our House: A Very Real Documentary About Kids of Gay & Lesbian Parents [2000] - is threaded with interviews involving families like ours. Incidentally, Spadola is the daughter of a lesbian. The director uses her own life lessons to examine the diverse experiences our children.

Cynthia Wade's moving 38-minute documentary film - Freeheld - chronicling New Jersey Police Lieutenant Laurel Hester's landmark legal battle to transfer her pension to her domestic partner has been nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Short Subject category.

The film was awarded a Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and picked up eleven additional awards at film festivals in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle and Denver.

Anyone and Everyone is a documentary film about having a lesbian or gay child.

Families from diverse backgrounds including Japanese, Bolivian, and Cherokee - and various religious denominations like Mormon, Jewish, and Southern Baptist - share their sensitive stories of children coming out.

The parents also talk about being ostracized by relatives, friends, and religious congregations.

"It was so evil and so bad that we almost couldn’t talk about it... You just had the idea it was so terrible that it was unspeakable," said a Mormon mother in the film.