“Gay Chorus Deep South” hits the Tribeca Film Festival

05 08 2019

One of our recent feature film projects, Gay Chorus Deep South, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last week, and we couldn’t be more excited for the world to see the incredibly powerful and poignant film.

Gay Chorus Deep South follows the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus’ 2017 tour that took them through Deep South, visiting churches in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina in an effort to spark conversations around acceptance. A response to the 2016 election and the divisive rhetoric of the time, the David Charles Rodrgues directed film depicts the varying realities and definitions of equality that exist today—and the individuals who continue to fight for what’s right.

When it came to sourcing footage for the film, we focused on a wide range of moments that spoke to the elements of working towards equal rights both within and outside of the gay community: historical footage from the civil rights movement, the powerful push for gay rights that began post-Stonewall, the AIDS crisis within the gay community in the 1980s, and the beginnings of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. It was about culling together scenes that spoke to the sobering fact that these fights for equality are still being fought on a daily basis.

We reached out to numerous archives throughout this project, from Associated Press to the San Francisco Film Archive, local San Francisco TV stations and news affiliates, and even the Gay Men’s Chorus’ archives—in fact, some of the members of the chorus provided material from their personal collections, which was incredible.

Whether it was shots that illuminate the challenges that color both the past and present or scenes that depict the continued perseverance and progress, every piece of footage brings an added force of narrative to the incredibly compelling story.

Check out more on the film here, dive into Vogue‘s feature on the film, and watch the teaser trailer above!