“Hilarity And Sadness And Wisdom”: Award-Winning Documentary ‘Come See Me In The Good Light’ Lights Up DC/DOX Festival

In certainly one of her poems from the gathering Love Letter from the Afterlife, Andrea Gibson writes, “Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive?”

These aren’t the idle musings of any person for whom dying is and vaguely unreal prospect. For the previous a number of years, the poet laureate of Colorado has faced a life-threatening sickness after their analysis with level 4 ovarian most cancers. The tale of the way Gibson and her spouse, spoken phrase poet Meg Falley, have confronted this existential problem in combination — opting for to reside joyously, to chuckle, and maximum of all to stay stuffed with love – is advised within the award-winning documentary Come See Me within the Good Light.

Director Ryan White introduced his movie to the celebrated DC/DOX pageant within the country’s capital Saturday evening, collaborating in a Q&A afterwards.

“This film more so than anything, is a love story more than a cancer story,” he advised the capability target audience.

The screening took place in a while after Pres. Trump’s army parade/birthday party in DC — timing now not misplaced at the filmmaker.

“I hope this film is kind of counter programming for what’s happening down the road,” White famous. “Andrea and Meg have this magic quality, I think they’re real unicorns of documentary subjects in being so raw in all emotions… Every scene that we shot carried the whole gamut of emotion… I was handed incredible documentary subjects that could weave in and out of hilarity and sadness and wisdom, all within a three-minute scene. So, the challenge was actually fitting it into a feature film.”

White and a small movie staff adopted Gibson and Falley as Andrea (who makes use of they/them pronouns) finished more than one rounds of extensive chemotherapy remedy.

“It really was building this tiny little family around them,” the filmmaker seen. “We couldn’t get permission to film in the hospital with like a real crew and camera because it would be disruptive to so many other cancer patients. Often it was just [Director of Photography] Brandon [Somerhalder] going into the chemo rooms or when they would get results, [filming] just with an iPhone. He became part of the fabric, like a shoulder to cry on. He would be there for a four-hour chemo session with them when I would just wait in the waiting room to not be disruptive.”

White added, “It was for me a very, very vulnerable way of filmmaking where you love your subjects and they’re loving you back and they’re trusting you completely… They allowed us to film everything, an extreme amount of trust letting you into such a painful journey.”

Audiences have answered rapturously to the movie, moved by means of the intimacy of the storytelling and its unexpected stability of poignancy and humor. Come See Me within the Good Light gained the Festival Favorite Award at Sundance as voted on by means of pageant attendees; it likewise gained target audience awards at Hot Docs in Toronto and the San Francisco International Film Festival, and the People’s Choice Award on the Boulder International Film Festival in Colorado.

Some audience of a extra conservative stripe, who may usually reject LGBTQ other people within the summary, have discovered themselves gained over by means of the tale.

“I can’t imagine anyone watching this film and not wanting the best for Andrea and Meg,” White mentioned. “A lot of folks have come up after [screenings] to talk about that and say, ‘I love them so much, how are they doing?’ And people who thought they were on one side of these politicized issues around queer and trans issues fell in love with Andrea and Meg watching it. And I think that’s the magic of Andrea as well. They’re so disarming in that way and that’s what’s so disarming about their poetry. It is so accessible. The way they write poetry invites everybody in and hopefully in our documentary Andrea’s personality is inviting people that might be — I will just say — on the wrong side of that, over to the right side.”

As Deadline reported in April, Apple TV+ bought the documentary and plans to debut it at the platform within the fall. Among the staff in the back of the movie is manufacturer Tig Notaro, the humorist who’s an in depth pal of Gibson and Falley, government manufacturer Brandi Carlile – additionally an in depth pal of the couple — and government Sara Bareilles, an established fan of Gibson’s poetry slam performances. Musicians Carlile and Bareilles, each more than one Grammy winners, co-wrote a track with Gibson that closes the movie, with Bareilles dealing with the vocals within the model of the documentary that screened Saturday evening. But the director printed there will likely be an replace to the last track by the point the movie premieres on Apple TV+.

“We have a new version that will be coming out that’s a duet, because it is a love song,” he famous. “It is a duet between Sara and Brandi where they each take a verse and harmonize on the chorus and that song will come out later in the year.”

The Apple TV+ unencumber will convey the movie to an enormous possible target audience, widening the chance for extra other people to fall in love with Andrea and Meg.

“The more we shot, the more we realized this is not a film about death. This is a film about living,” White commented. “It is inspiring us, the crew while we’re making it.”