Documentary Feature About Historic Transgender Chorus Has Its Los Angeles Premiere At Outfest 2020

The documentary film, OUT LOUD will be available to stream starting Saturday, August 29, as an official selection of this year's Outfest, the largest and oldest film festival in Los Angeles and one of the most widely-recognized LGBTQ film festivals in the world. Due to the pandemic, Outfest shifted to a virtual event this year.

OUT LOUD chronicles the ups and downs of the first season of the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles --the largest group of transgender and gender nonconforming people anywhere in the world who regularly sing together. Led by Lindsey Deaton, who co-founded the chorus and served as its first artistic director, these choristers, many of whom have no musical training, come together to hone their craft and find their voices individually and in harmony with each other. Some choristers have the additional challenge of coping with changes to their vocal range as they transition. The stakes are high for all as they prepare for their 2016 history-making public concert debut in this inspiring story of an extraordinary choir.

OUT LOUD was produced by Jill Shinefield and Gail Willumsen, Los Angeles-based documentary filmmakers with three decades experience creating non-fiction programming for PBS, Discovery, National Geographic and other outlets -work that has earned them four Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, and many other accolades. "OUT LOUD is our first independent production, and it became a LABOR OF LOVE for us," says Shinefield. "We were 'embedded' with the Trans Chorus for nearly a year, and that allowed us to capture the beautiful arc of their development as singers and performers." Shinefield and Willumsen, who are cisgender, learned about the creation of the Trans Chorus through a local newspaper. "We were immediately inspired by the mission of the chorus -to give voice to a community too long silenced. Clearly this would be history in the making, and it needed to be documented," says Willumsen.

OUT LOUD has an original score written by a trans woman, Los Angeles-based composer Jordan Balagot (who is also a member of the Trans Chorus.) Balagot earned a Bachelors in Music Composition from Oberlin College, and an MFA in Music Composition for the Screen from Columbia College Chicago. Her original song "Genderfreak" is also performed by the chorus in the documentary.

OUT LOUD had its world premiere on May 9, 2020 at Translations: Seattle Transgender Film Festival and will screen as an official selection at a number of upcoming festivals across the United States and Canada.

For tickets to the Outfest screening of OUT LOUD, please go to: https://www.outfestnow.com/out-loud

For more information about Outfest 2020, please go to: https://outfest.org/outfestla2020/

For more information about Gemini Productions, please go to: www.geminiproductions.tv.

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