6Qs with Stephen Eyer and Daneen Akers of Seventh-Gay Adventists

Stephen Eyer and Daneen Akers have been hard a work engaging their fans and mobilizing them into funders for Seventh-Gay Adventists.

They've raised over $8,000 of their $10,000 goal, with which they've funded their entire first round of production and research through their IndieGoGo contributions.

Seventh-Gay Adventists is fiscally sponsored by San Francisco Film Society.  Through our partnership - all SFFS projects can offer tax deductions to their contributors on IndieGoGo. Exciting stuff!

Check out Stephen and Daneen's 6Q below to learn their DIWO story.

Q1: Tell us about Seventh-Gay Adventists.  What was your inspiration for the project?

SE: Seventh-Gay Adventists is a documentary about gay and lesbian members of the Seventh-day Adventist church, a conservative worldwide denomination. At its heart the film is about our need for belonging and community and the challenges of having two core identities in conflict. 

The log line is, “A film about love, sex, and eternal life”, and, although it’s obviously a bit irreverent, I do think that it really sums up the challenge. How does someone reconcile who they are with what they were raised to believe God requires? How much bigger a conflict can you get?

DA: Most people know that being a gay Christian isn’t easy, but being a gay Adventist is especially difficult because Adventism, to most, is more than a belief system; it’s also a close-knit community with unique cultural habits. Besides worshipping on Saturdays instead of Sundays, most Adventists are also vegetarian and abstain from alcohol, tobacco, and often even caffeine and jewelry. For someone who grew up immersed in the church, the culture and DNA of Adventism is almost like an ethnicity.

For all its apparent peculiarities, Adventism does not deviate from the Christian mainstream in its condemnation of homosexuality. Like almost every other Protestant denomination, the Adventist church teaches that the only way for gays to live within God’s will is to abstain from any intimate relationship. The approach taught is, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.”

SE: LGBT Adventists face a gut-wrenching decision. They must choose between the church they were raised to believe is God's true church and their innate desire for an intimate, loving relationship. We wanted to explore how people were trying to work through these really big questions.

DA: We got interested in this project for two reasons. First, we were both raised Adventist and come from a long line of Adventist teachers and preachers. When we started this project, I was pregnant with our first child (our now 1-year-old daughter, Lily). We’d realized that we had no idea how we were going to raise her from a spiritual and religious perspective. What we’d been raised with wasn’t all bad. But it wasn’t all good either!

This was also when California was in the midst of the Prop 8 fight over same-sex marriage. At the time we’d been living in San Francisco for five years and had starting going to a progressive, accepting church (www.secondwindsf.org) where we’d become close friends with several same-sex couples. We helped start a group that reached out to conservative religious voters to try to get them to consider voting “no” on Prop 8. When Prop 8 passed, we were deeply disappointed but motivated to do more. Since we’d already produced and directed one feature (about my mom’s struggle with a chronic pain condition, www.LivingwithFM.com), it seemed like a film was the logical next step. 

 

Q2: What are your goals for the film?  What impact do you want it to make?

SE: You mean besides radical and revolutionary change?

DA: We hope this film can help create more empathy and compassion. We’re deep believers in the power of story to change hearts and minds. We were deeply disappointed when Prop 8 passed and we saw our friends get stripped of their rights. Our daughter was born a month later, and we just really felt like there was so much more to be done so that she would be raised in a world that was more fair and just. We also felt like religion had been the white elephant in the room that nobody really wanted to talk about at the No on 8 phone banks and such. It’s going to have to become a part of the conversation for lasting change to happen.

 

SE: We felt like a film could do so much more to achieve the sort of lasting change that happens when you engage in someone else’s story, even briefly. When you spend time listening, really listening to someone’s story, you can’t go back. You have entered into someone else’s life for a brief while, and it changes you.

 

DA: There’s also needed empathy from those who don’t know or understand the conservative Christian mindset. I understand there are some fundamentalists who deserve the criticism and derision (Exhibit A: Uganda and the Evangelical right-wing that is exporting hate), but most of the conservative Adventists that we know, including many of our family members, don’t deserve the stereotype. Many people want to be loving. And I think they want to know that they can support gay rights without turning their backs on their faith. Of course this has happened in the past with the anti-slavery movement, women’s suffrage, and civil rights, to name a few, and I think this is slowly happening with gay rights as our cultural norms change. 

 

SE: If our film could be a small part of that change, we’d be completely satisfied.

 

 

Q3: Who needs to see this film and who do you want to see this film? How are you identifying, reaching and building your audiences?  

 

DA: We want to reach an audience both within the Adventist church and beyond who is willing to engage in a meaningful conversation about religion and homosexuality. This topic has become extremely contentious recently, and the Adventist church makes an interesting case study for the broader political and cultural conflict between religion and sexuality.

 

SE: We’re really in the beginning stages of this project still, but we’ve turned to a few resources so far to start identifying our audiences. One group that has been extremely helpful is SDA Kinship, a support group for current and former Adventists who are also gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. It’s through them that we’ve met the majority of our subjects. We set up a story booth at their annual convention this past summer and started meeting potential film subjects (and supporters) there.  We knew after the convention that we needed to get out and talk to more people about this issue.

 

DA: We actually just returned from a three-month, 11,000 mile production road trip around the U.S. for the film. We spent the entire fall on the road pulling a small travel trailer behind our car visiting major Adventist population centers and setting up more story booths. We did this with our nine-month-old daughter, Lily, along for the fun. I was pretty nervous at first about going on the road for three months with a baby--I had no idea how she would do, and we didn’t have money to bring along a babysitter. But the timing was right (we were in-between apartments, so we could go on the road without paying rent), and we just really felt like we needed to get momentum going on the project. 

 

SE: Whenever Daneen started to worry about what someone would think about us showing up with a camera and a baby, I’d remind her that nobody else was signing up to tell this story! And Lily did really well. She’s a total extrovert, and she just loved meeting new people. Along the way people hosted us, babysat for us, sent us on our way with homemade goodies and encouragement, and they continued to give to the project. We’ve had one individual and one group make significant contributions (offline), but all of the online fundraising has been through individuals, many through $25 donations here and there. 

 

DA: On our recent research/production trip, we had quite a few conversations both on and off-camera with thought leaders, and we’ve really been slowly building our audiences from the ground level. We often laugh about the fact that we’re making a film about two topics people try to avoid talking about--sex and religion. So we’ve been trying to meet key individuals who can support the project in person first.

 

We’re just beginning to start having conversations with other groups who might be interested in this project (like the religious arm of the HRC), so we feel like there is still a lot of work to be done in this area.

 

Q4. What role does the Internet and social media play in your DIWO (Do-It-With-Others) efforts?

 

SE: Building an audience is one of the most important things an independent filmmaker can do these days.  The question is how to get others involved and engaged with your project.  We all know there are 350 million people on Facebook, but how many of those are interested in seeing your work?

 

We wanted to find out ourselves and thought that building up a fan page for our film from the very beginning would be a good idea.  Luckily, one of the great tools on FB is how easy they make it to do target advertising.  So we created a new page for the film and started advertising to people who we thought would be interested in the topic.  We didn’t have a big budget, but spent a few dollars a day for a few weeks to see what kind of results we would get.  Before we knew it we had over 1,000 fans.

 

Now the trick is to build relationships with those fans because right now there are many people on there whom we don’t even know.  We hope to do this by providing regular meaningful content, exclusive behind-the-scenes information, and personal interactions.  And yes, we will occasionally ask for contributions and point people to our IndieGoGo page to make it easy for them to give (but, we’re trying to be careful not to overdo it).  People give to someone they know and something they care about.  So we’re trying to do both -- make sure our fans get to know us a little bit better through our posts and provide helpful information about the project and the issues our film covers.

 

Q5.  What tactics did you use for financing?  How has IndieGoGo worked out for you?

 

SE: We knew when we started this project that we wanted to bring other people in to help finance the project, rather than do it all on our own like we had on our previous film.  I think we’d been hesitant before to get others involved because we were so green, and we didn’t want to risk any one else’s money while we tried to figure it out.  After finishing the film and winning a couple of small awards we had more confidence in ourselves and in audiences to find and fund these smaller, independent films this time around.

 

IndieGoGo and our fiscal sponsor, the San Francisco Film Society, teamed up to offer an online way for supporters to make tax-deductible donations. The timing was perfect—I had just been looking around for a way to do this when I got the email announcing the new partnership.

 

DA: The Facebook integration with IndieGoGo has also been really helpful. We realize that we have a lot more work to do to really take advantage of social media—three months on a production trip with a nine-month old meant that we were barely managing to post status updates on the film’s Facebook page—but so far it’s been extremely helpful. We funded our entire first round of production and research through our IndieGoGo contributions.

 

Q6: What is next on your radar? And where can folks follow your efforts?

 

DA: Next up is a pitch trailer. We still have a lot of filming to do as we continue to follow our main subjects. That will mean more fundraising. I’m making Stephen promise that next time we’ll raise money for a babysitter!

 

SE: The main website for the film is http://www.sgamovie.com where you can sign-up for our newsletter, become a fan on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.  Thanks!

 

 

Comments

[jaren Polite]

Thanks for putting this up this really helped me thanks come check out my blog on blogging http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vixeWc4JI00

[Kristin]

At first when I saw the name of your movie/profile, I was offended. Being raised Adventist even though I consider myself liberal, it felt very irreverent and sarcastic. After reading your blog, I now realize, my heart is conflicted and I don't even know what to think anymore. All I really know and believe is what I read in God's word. The Bible seems clear in that Gay/Lesbian acts are not pleasing to God. My heart is conflicted, because I know there are situations out there in which individuals start out early in life with sexual confusion. I don't believe that gay/lesbian acts were intended by God, just as much as I don't think God's plans included any persons to suffer from autism, add, down syndrom etc.. My only conclusion is sin has empowered us on many levels. I do not in any way, shape, form condone gay/lesbian acts/rights if it is choice. I think that's what the Bible is talking about but in the case of the many who as little children felt confused by there gender or interests, then perhaps God sees this in different light? I think I do? I wish I had peace on this issue, because so many of my friends are gay/lesbian. I am conflicted but want to be open. Bottom line...God commanded us to love one another! I can't imagine he would restrict same sex couples who were born with these tendencies to refrain from falling in love and one step further...making love. I just don't know anything anymore. Why is this SO hard for me to totally accept??? I'm sorry if I have offended anyone. I know my thoughts are scattered but my motives are pure. I'm just in search of answers. God bless each and every one of you. I'm so sorry for all that pain and rejection many of you have had to endure. KME

[Billy Bob]

Free speech should win out but it would be nice to find some way to limit the timing of these peoples bad behavior.

[developmental disabilities]

I would also commend these events. Children with disabilities have the right to experience art. Who knows, they may have talent.