Articles and Reviews about As If It Matters

Brief encounters: The best and the rest of the lesbian and gay film festival San Francisco Bay Guardian June 12, 2000 As If It Matters(LYRIC/Gay Straight Alliance Network/TILT, USA) Youth is fervently worshipped in queer culture, not to mention American culture, but how often is it accurately portrayed? This accomplished 25-minute video stems directly from the nine high school students who wrote, edited, produced, and directed-- as well as acted in-- it. Refreshingly free of party-line (read: adult) viewpoints, the made-in-San Francisco "As If" reveals how six high school kids of various backgrounds deal with sexual identity, homophobia, body fascism, locker-room discomforts, queer parents, and doing their homework. The characters, credibly portrayed by amateur actors (a few clearly playing themselves), intersect as if in a junior Altman movie, and the gentle, insistent way "As If" addresses its subjects is anything but dogmatic. Part of the "Not For Adults" program, Thurs/20, 3:45 p.m., Castro. (Glen Helfand) San Francisco International Film Festival April-May 2002 As If It Matters Certificate of Merit, Youth Works. Interweaving the stories of eight gay youths, this engrossing and beautifully crafted film offers an ambitious fictional look at the issues, fears and prejudices they must face every day. (TILT, LYRIC and GSA Network, USA 2001, 25 min.) As videomaking technology becomes more accessible, greater numbers of young people are picking up cameras and documenting their world, sharing their opinions and expressing their creativity. Voices once rarely heard are now shouting the loudest, from gay teens to working-class communities. Teen Media Makers, Coast to Coast Youth Media Reporter May 2002 Each month, the Youth Media Reporter will shine its Spotlight on a youth media organization, their work, young people, staff, and plans for the future. The May Spotlight, "Teen Media Makers, Coast to Coast", focuses on two teen media makers from New York City and San Francisco. We wanted to find out how their involvement in youth media has affected their development and outlook on life. Is it just about cameras and writing a good story?... Youth Media Maker Wins Courage Award May 2002 Vanessa Duran, 17, an artist working with the Free Zone project in San Francisco, is a recipient of the Colin Higgins Foundation Courage Award, recognizing her accomplishments as an artist and her interest in using film, video, and photography to confront social issues and create change.... MOMA highlights teen filmmakers San Francisco Chronicle May 24, 2002 [As If It Matters], which received a certificate of merit in the Youth Works category at the recent San Francisco International Film Festival, traces the lives of six characters, one of whom is Jen, a girl with two lesbian moms. She is played by Eleanor Gerber-Shiff, 16, who actually has two lesbian moms. She said telling her story in the film -- even a fictionalized version -- proved more difficult than she'd anticipated.... Focus on movies by teens S.F. Film Festival to air locally produced shorts May 1, 2002 San Francisco Chronicle "Everyday Eastlake" and "As If It Matters" weave together a series of fictional vignettes based on the teenagers' life experiences. The Oakland teenagers interviewed merchants, neighbors, family members and others as the backbone for their script. The nine-member San Francisco group simply shared tales from their own lives. "Our stories were really similar. That was really empowering," said Vanessa Duran, 17, a Berkeley High senior who worked on "As If It Matters" in San Francisco last summer through a joint program of the Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center, Gay-Straight Alliance Network and Teaching Intermedia Learning Tools.... top Send recommendations for new links to highcontrast@gsanetwork.org.

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