Documenting the Gay Baby Boom through Home Videos

by Alex Bleiberg

Documentary filmmaker Lisa Marie Evans has always tried to capture the texture of day-to-day life in her films.

“I have a great interest in how people live their lives, and I hope people can find commonality among the subjects of my films—an inner commonality.”

Her latest film provides a uniquely unobstructed view of the day-to-day.  Evans is using home-video footage, sent from around the world, to assemble a portrait of LGBT families.

The documentary, Gayby Boom, began when two of Evans’ friends asked her to film the process of becoming pregnant.

“They found out that it was such a hard project in terms of what’s the best path for finding a donor, who is the best doctor that is respectful of LGBT couples, and they wanted to share their experience.”

At a video art exhibit, Evans settled on a new documentary strategy after watching a film that combined YouTube videos of individual singers to create a YouTube chorus. Evans was interested in how the film brought together independently executed fragments to create a cohesive, artistic whole. 

Evans decided that, by using compilation, she would create a documentary with a recognizable aesthetic structure out of the most formless of mediums: home video.

“I think it’s a very organic method of storytelling,” says Evans.  “There’s definitely a sense of magic, of beauty, that comes from collaboration.”

Evans began soliciting home video contributions from LGBT families. She expanded the scope of the film to encompass the full “complexities and realities of the ever-evolving family.”

Evans originally intended for the movie to serve an educational, even political purpose. 

“The LGBT community is the ultimate underrepresented community, because of the assumption that most people are heterosexual, and LGBT families are a particular minority that doesn’t have a voice,” Evans said.

But after watching hours of home video footage, Evans has found her own perceptions of LGBT families transformed. 

“It’s like my vision has opened up: I see these families all over the place that I never noticed before.  It’s a new sort of awareness.” 

The film became personally relevant to Evans after she met her partner, Kelly, who was raising a child of her own.

“We can have backgrounds that are so different, and be so different in a lot of ways, and yet also be so similar.” 

Evans discovered certain universal challenges among LGBT families: “constantly coming out” to new acquaintances, for example, or (for mothers that had worked with a sperm donation center) explaining the concept of fatherhood.

Mostly, Evans has been struck by the families’ desire to be given a voice.

“They give me the footage, they took the time (sometimes hours), they care about the project, and then they give it to me, they let it go.  It’s so special that they have that trust.”

Although the official video submission deadline has passed, Lisa Marie Evans is still collecting home videos for her website.  To find out how to contribute, visit her website at http://www.lisamarieart.com/gaybyboom/home.html.