Family Restaurant is our media project for children whose parents are gay or lesbian. Several Boing Boing readers backed the project on Kickstarter last year, and now it’s on the festival circuit.
There’s not much media out there specifically for children whose parents are gay or lesbian, and with more and more children starting school with a classmate who is part of a gay or lesbian household, we wanted to create something that would be a fun way to explain the issue to young children, especially because children generally don’t understand why some adults get so freaked out.
The film was inspired by my friends’ decision to adopt from LA’s foster care system. The film stars Alec Mapa, his husband Jamison Hebert, and their son Zion. It was a delightful family project made possible by Kickstarter and by all our friends in the industry who pitched in to help.
Another goal was to get children to think creatively about everyday items and how they can have fun with them by using their imaginations and being makers themselves. The next phase of the project will be to have a lot of families interact with the characters and talk about their lives, as part of an online media project.
We’re having a screening with the Warner Bros. feature Happy Feet at Frameline, the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival. It’s part of the festival’s family day and sponsored by Our Family Coalition.
This is a great chance to bring your kids down to one of America’s greatest historic movie theatres for a fun morning. The program is free for ages 12 and under. I’m all about getting a new generation excited about the theatre experience.
I’ll be there in person with Alec’s family, so please say hi if you join us!
From the Frameline synopsis:
When the diner closes up for the night, the salt and pepper shakers, napkin holders, and other inanimate objects inside the restaurant come to life in this whimsical tale about what makes a family. One night, Picky, a curmudgeonly toothpick dispenser, causes a stir when he insists that two ketchup bottles and two mustard bottles can’t fall in love with each other. The next day, with the help of little boy with two dads, he learns a valuable lesson. Kids will get a kick out of the quirky puppetry in this sweet short with an important message.
Details:
Sunday June 23, 2013 @ 10am, Castro Theatre (at Market).
We’ll also be screening Family Restaurant in Provincetown several times August 3-10 as part of Family Equality Council’s annual Family Week event.
If you know LGBT families on the east coast, this is a really remarkable event that continues to grow each year.
We’ll have some more news soon on another part of the project that starts in the fall. If you can’t make it to the screenings and would like to learn more, you can visit our site.
We’re also in the last two days of our newest Kickstarter, where we’re filming Alec’s stand-up special Baby Daddy, which talks about how is life has changed since becoming a dad. That will film on July 20 in Los Angeles.
You can check out the Kickstarter here.
Stay tuned for more news about this soon!
Images: stills from "Family Restaurant," courtesy Andrea James.
