Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black is trying to get the word out all over about his latest endeavor — especially to his one-time home state of Texas.
“I think this project is so important,” the Milk screenwriter told Dallas Voice this week. “People need to hear the stories of our LGBT brethren and straight allies from all areas. If you wanna change minds, you have to intro yourself and tell your story.”
Which is what he’s calling for people across America to do for the Courage Campaign’s Testimony initiative. And the former San Antonian hopes some Lone Star State peeps will get on board.
For the DLB Video Challenge, he’s searching for LGBTs across America to submit a short video telling their story: Coming out, getting married, having kids, minority status, etc., any story that stems from the perspective of the community. Three videos will be selected for which Black and his production team will head out to that person’s city and film that story for TV.
“We want to take the stories and share them all over. At the end of summer, we think they will really express how diverse our community is and take them out of the web and bringing them to those areas that need to hear them the most. We want to take a story from Bedford, Texas, and have it playing in Bedford, Texas.”
Yes, an Oscar winner just name-dropped friggin’ Bedford.
Although he didn’t say it specifically (OK, the publicist hinted at it more), stories from smaller cities would be ideal. A lot of what’s behind this challenge is to introduce LGBT people as everyday people and to the people who “don’t know any.”
You’ll get a clear picture of his efforts in this video. The thing is, you gotta act quick. The deadline is June 15. The videos are to just be 1-2 minutes long so it shouldn’t be much trouble to record and submit.
Dustin Lance Black: Testimony Video Contest from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.
Black also took time to plug some of his upcoming works. Well, I asked about them, and he was more than willing to chat it up. The biggest movie now is J. Edgar, which he wrote and stars Leonardo DiCaprio.
“That’s the biggest thing right now,” he said. “It comes out in October and it tackles some gay issues. That’s my baby.”
He’s also developing a show for HBO and that’s all he had to say about that.
Until that all happens, he’ll likely be focused on his work with AFER and the Courage Campaign upcoming deadline as videos have already been coming in. But maybe yours is the one he’s hoping for.
