Out At Lunch's collective talent
Making documentaries about family life is always tricky, especially when you're dealing with situations that can lead to friction. In their new documentary Out At Lunch, sisters Emma Brogen and Alisa Arnah follow a group of young lesbian friends over the course of a meal with their parents in their last few days before leaving university. We caught up with the creative team to ask what drew them to the subject.
"The initial idea was mine," says Emma, who produced the film. "It's my group of friends and I came up with the idea to hold a meal because I wanted to do something memorable to celebrate the amazing group we'd built up. I also thought it might be a way for some of the girls to push their relationships with their parents and start being more upfront and honest with them. Making a documentary about it just seemed the next logical step. I rang Alisa as soon as I'd thought of the idea, and when I was half way through explaining about the meal she'd already said 'lets make a documentary!'. That's when I knew we had to go ahead with it."
"It may not seem such a big deal at first but all these girls are lesbians, and the idea of asking their parents to come along to a meal with lots of other gays turns out to be a pretty daunting prospect," director Alisa explains. "Really though, its not about the meal, it's about more than that. It's about the individual experiences of these girls, coming out, what their friendship has meant to them and how they feel now that they're about to leave such a safe and secure environment and face life in 'the real world'."
In fact, as the real world has become more accepting, there's a risk that some of the issues young gay people face are being overlooked, as Emma explains. "Being gay maybe isn't seen as such a new things these days, in fact, we're becoming quite mainstream! But I feel that in many ways it still isn't a subject that's been fully explored, and a lot of the time that it is explored it's not done well. There are still a lot of stereotypes that persist and I really wanted to make a film that would challenge these. I wanted to show everyone how lovely and normal these girls were. Realising I was gay at a young age I really felt that there was no one to represent me, no one to act as a role model. I wanted to give that to other people, I wanted to show them that you can be gay and still be happy and loved."
"I definitely feel that there is still a long way to go in this area," Alisa adds. "I had always considered myself to be very open minded and liberal but when Emma came out I was confronted by prejudices I didn’t even know I had. I found myself asking questions that seem crazy to me now: is she afraid of relationships with men? Will her life be really difficult? How will she ever have a family? It took several years for me to truly accept it and now I couldn’t be happier for her, she knows who she is and she’s not afraid of it. It was very upsetting in some of the interviews to hear about girls whose families practically stopped speaking to them when they came out. It’s my hope that this film will not only help young people coming out but also go some way towards relieving misplaced preconceptions and help families and friends of gay people too."
So how did the two of them become involved in filmmaking?
"Alisa was always the one in film, first an actress then working as a producer on some short films," says Emma. "I'd always had a strong interest but I was concentrating on being a scientist! I let that side of myself out when I helped produce a piece of devised theatre at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. I loved every minute of that. I always knew I’d find a way into film, I'd just been waiting for the right opportunity."
"I wanted to see what I could do on the other side of the camera and have more involvement at that level," says Alisa, who starred in How To Be with Robert Pattinson. "I started out by producing a couple of shorts that I was also acting in but I knew that my real interest was in directing. When Emma came up with the idea I jumped at the chance."
So how did they persuade their subjects to share their enthusiasm for the film?
"They're all my friends - well, they were before I made the film! It was this big friendship group that had just sort of evolved and it meant the world to me, it still does. I wanted to show other people what we had. Convincing them it was such a good idea wasn't so easy, but they came round to it in the end and they were all amazingly supportive," says Emma. "Convincing them that they wanted to sit in front of a camera and talk about their feelings wasn’t that easy, I don’t think it was even the subject matter, I just think it’s a scary prospect for anyone. But with a bit of persuading they came round to it. Once it came to the actual interviews there were no problems, they were all amazing. I was so impressed by how well they opened up in the interviews, they were all so articulate about their experiences and feelings, it was quite emotional watching it! Maybe the biggest challenge is still to come. I think making it was one thing but accepting that it's going out into the public sphere might be quite another. That’s a bridge to cross when we get there!"
"I think another problem was the reluctance to be involved that came from the parents," says Alisa. "Some were just camera shy but with others it had been difficult enough for the girls to invite their parents to the dinner let alone introduce them to the idea of a documentary about it. I think the fact that the parents were very reluctant to speak to us speaks volumes about how difficult this subject still is for many people."
"We plan to launch Out at Lunch in February 2010, to coincide with LBGT history month," says Emma. "We plan to do preview screenings of the film in several large cities - Cambridge, London, Brighton and Manchester - in conjunction with the organisations that are supporting us such as Schools Out. Hopefully we can get some of the celebrities who have already shown an interest in the film to come along for some Q&As! We’ve got high hopes of it getting in the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in April but we also want to take it to the more mainstream festival circuit. It's important that this doesn’t just become a film about lesbians only seen by gay people. Its about more than that and it's important that films like this get seen by the more general public."
So what are the sisters' plans as regards making other films? Alisa is emphatic. "We want to keep going! This film is going to keep us pretty busy till the beginning of next year but we’re hoping to find time to squeeze out some smaller projects whilst we’re working on it. I think it’s important to see projects through - we’re not going to just leave this on the shelf or get it out to one festival and forget about it. I think what the film has to say is much too important for that. We want as many people as possible to have the chance to see it. The aim, as for every other indie filmmaker I suppose, is to actually get paid to do this. At the moment we’re fitting it around full-time jobs and other commitments, I’d love to have eight hours a day dedicated to LifeSliceFilms , and our own office - then we’d really be living the dream!"
If you'd like to find out more about Out At Lunch, visit the official website at http://www.outatlunch.com.
