Loading Docs 2014 - Queer Selfies

Web (Full Length) – 2014

The concept of this short doco was to give its subjects the opportunity to tell their own stories straight to camera. Filmmakers Robyn Paterson and Paula Boock gave attendees of Auckland's annual Big Gay Out an invitation to go into a self-operated video booth, and answer the question ‘What does home mean to you?’. The candid results are snapshots of LGBT experiences and searches for identity and belonging. Queer Selfies featured on TV’s 20/20 and was made as part of Loading Docs, a series of three-minute long Kiwi films created for online distribution.

I’m interested in how candid and how diverse the responses are when people get to control their own interviews like this, in a ‘selfie’ type setting. The term selfie can sometimes attract negative associations of ‘narcissistic youth’ etc, but for many of us in minority communities there’s an important sense of empowerment in being able to control our own image. In the GLTB community particularly, we’re used to our image being manipulated or misused by media – so this was a chance to hand the power back, in a sense.
– Director Robyn Paterson