A brand new Australian documentary film is coming soon – Gayby Baby – which tells the stories of children of same-sex parented families.
In Gayby Baby we meet four kids – Gus, Ebony, Matt and Graham – whose parents all happen to be gay. As they each wrestle with the onset of puberty, the outside world wrestles with the issue of marriage equality, and whether or not kids of same-sex families are at risk.
Sydney filmmakers Maya Newell and Charlotte McLellan raised $100k to make the film through crowdfunding in 2012.
As the daughter of two mothers, Newell hopes to change the minds of those who believe same-sex parenting is detrimental to children and ultimately her goal is to bring gay marriage to reality. We’re in the midst of what Newell likes to call a ‘Gayby-Boom’ with fifteen percent of homosexual couples raising a child – amounting to millions of children across the globe. The documentary will be told from the perspectives of the three such ‘gaybies’ to see what it’s really like to grow up in such a family.
Newell explains
“I am a ‘gayby’ – a person with gay parents. I want to tell the story of children growing up in families like mine. When I was a kid, there were not many other children with gay parents. I would have loved to be able to watch a film and feel that my experiences were shared. So I decided to make that film.”
Maya Newell
The release of Gayby Baby follows Newell’s Growing Up Gayby, a 2013 documentary on the same subject which screened on the ABC in 2013.
The documentary will be having its World Premiere at Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto, Canada next month, and we’ll let you know when screenings are happening here.
The official website for Gayby Baby will soon be updated with lots more information. See it here.