“Lost in Paradise,” directed by Vu Ngoc Dang, explores the love that grows between two young men, a prostitute and a bookseller; it is making the rounds at Toronto, Vancouver, and Berlin. The French LGBT website Têtu reports that it’s drawing crowds in its native Vietnam, where it says homosexuals are figures of fun or viewed as sick (though the country did hold its first, albeit illegal, same-sex marriage last June). The article quotes one fifty-year-old [presumably straight man] as saying “Now I think they are like us.”
Filmmaker Morgan Jon Fox has been touring the nation this fall, premiering his six-years-in-the-making documentary This Is What Love In Action Looks Like. The film was inspired by the protests that began when a sixteen year-old named Zach posted a plea for help, after learning that his parents were forcing him into a now defunct “ex-gay” program called Refuge, run by Love in Action in Memphis, Tennessee. The sold-out hometown premiere in Memphis was Friday night, as part of the Indie Memphis film festival, and let’s just say the film did well:
Memphis’ Morgan Jon Fox, who debuted the final version of his years-in-the-making documentary This is What Love in Action Looks Like at Playhouse on the Square Friday, was the big winner at the closing night awards ceremony of the 14th annual Indie Memphis Film Festival.
Fox’s film, which documents the plight of a Memphis teen forced into a church-based “gay de-programming” institution and the surprising evolution of the institution’s director, picked up two awards from two different juries: It picked up a Special Documentary Jury Award and Best Hometowner Feature, the latter coming with a $1000 cash prize presented by the Memphis & Shelby County Film and Television Commission.
“I’ve shown several films here and the feeling I get having a premiere here is different than anywhere,” Fox said after picking up the special jury award. He went on to express his appreciation for having a home “so loving and supportive.”
After the screening, a lively panel discussion happened, moderated by Chris Davis of The Memphis Flyer, and featured Fox, Peterson Toscano [who is in the film, and whom many of you are familiar with], E.J. Friedman, one of the original bloggers and activists who participated in the 2005 protests, former Love In Action leader John Smid, and also your own Evan Hurst of Truth Wins Out. Here’s a snapshot photographer Michael Norris took of that panel. I’m in the middle and Smid has the microphone [click to embiggen]:
A hearty Truth Wins Out congratulations goes out to Morgan for a job well done!
We mourn the loss of Tom Murray, whose death today from a heart attack was announced by partner Vince on Tom’s Facebook page.
Murray was an award-winning documentary filmmaker who focused on stories exploring the LGBT experience. His recent projects examined “the variety of ways people find spirituality in our community.” His films included “Farm Family: Rural Life in Gay America,” “Fish Can’t Fly,” “Almost Myself,” “Tell,” “A Portable Tribe,” and “Amancio: Two Faces on a Tombstone.”
His 2005 documentary Fish Can’t Fly was a full-length exploration of the lives of people of faith who have endured and survived the spiritual and emotional traumas that are inflicted upon gay and lesbian people and their families by the “ex-gay” movement.
The film was instrumental in making religious audiences aware of the spiritual lives of LGBT people — and in alerting these same audiences to the religious and mental-health fraud that is Exodus International.
According to Murray’s website:
Tom Murray openly admits to getting a late start in life with filmmaking. Having studied filmmaking in his college years, and long term fan of documentary films, it was only in his “50+” years that he tackled his first feature length work. Inspired by his upbringing on a dairy farm in northern Illinois, “FARM FAMILY…in search of Gay life in rural America” was voted Best Feature Length Documentary at the Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in 2004 and has been acquired by Viacom as part of the initial acquisitions for LOGO TV, the new Gay and Lesbian cable channel. Now a resident of the Gulf coast of Florida, in 2005 Tom completed his second feature, “FISH CAN‘T FLY” which takes a look at the way in which Gay people of faith go about putting their spirituality and sexuality in harmony.
Murray continued to refine his filmmaking skills with subsequent efforts, and this year he was planning to complete work on a film exploring spirituality in the LGBT community.
Murray was an award-winning documentary filmmaker who focused on stories exploring the LGBT experience. His recent projects examined “the variety of ways people find spirituality in our community.” His films included “Farm Family: Rural Life in Gay America,” “Fish Can’t Fly,” “Almost Myself,” “Tell,” “A Portable Tribe,” and “Amancio: Two Faces on a Tombstone.”
