Producers Kimberlee Bassford (Making Waves Productions) and ’Amelia Niumeitolu have joined the production team!

Being different is hard enough. Try being transgender in a small Polynesian country.

Currently in post-production, the announcement in co-producer and supervising editor to “LIke a Lady: The Fakaleitis of Tonga” is a crucial addition to the completion of the film! Fellow filmmakers ‘Amelia Niumeitolu and Tom McIntire bring a wealth of experience, talent and passion as documentary filmmakers to a story appealing to the audience’s sympathies and imagination. This pathos through the storyteller’s journey of feeling outcast as a gay volunteer in a conservative milieu, solicits the audience to feel the emotional impact through the filmmaker’s, and additionally, the fakaleiti’s experience living as if in a fishbowl. The emotional and imaginative impact of their message on the audience moves the viewer to question their values, beliefs and understanding. Welcome!

Co-Producer:
‘Amelia Leafaitulagi Niumeitolu is a Tongan born daughter and sister, raised in Hawai’i and Utah. She is a storyteller of Pacific Islander voices and experiences representing the Oceanic diaspora. Her media making skills are committed to re-telling honest stories of the people of the Pacific who are often unseen and invisible. ’Amelia yearns to fill film frames with brown bodies reconstructing identity and self love.

Supervising Editor:
Writer/director/producer/editor Tom has 8 short films under his belt, with his most recent being a beautiful environmentally themed short Greenspoke – this timely thriller premiered at 2009 Bumbershoot One Reel Festival with subsequent showings at the Maelstrom International Festival of Fantastical Films and the Tacoma Film Festival. Greenspoke’s script placed in the semi-finals of the 2008 Shriekfest short sci fi screenplay competition. In 2008, Tom achieved Apple Final Cut Studio Master Pro Certification for the entire Final Cut product suite – Final Cut Pro (level 1 and 2), Motion, Color, Soundtrack and DVD Studio Pro – to improve his post-production skills.

Three Dollar Bill Cinema – producers of the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival have accepted “Like a Lady” for fiscal sponsorship!