Winning Dad Archives - Big Gay Picture Show

Starring: Jake Street, Arthur Allen, Chuck Sigars, Ellen McLain
Director: Arthur Allen
Running Time: 95 mins
Certificate: NR

Colby is gay, something his conservative father, Michael, has never properly accepted. However, Colby has now found a man he thinks might be ‘the one’ and so hatches a plan for his dad to get to know Rusty, without him realising he’s his son’s boyfriend. Colby tells his father that Rusty is his straight friend and future business partner who’s he’s invited along on their annual camping trip with them.

When it’s time to go on the trip, Colby says he can’t go at the last minute, and so Rusty and Michael head off alone. Initially it looks like they’re going to get on well, but as the men become more comfortable around one another, Rusty starts to think perhaps he can tell Michael the truth – although if he does, there’s no guarantee Michael will accept it and the repercussions might not just rip Colby’s family apart, but also his relationship with Rusty. [Read more…]

Quite a lot of LGBT-themed film projects come to our attention that are seeking funding on on various crowd-funding platforms, some of which look like they might be better than others. One that does look like it might be pretty good is Winning Dad, which has just launched a Kickstarter campaign looking for $30,000 of funding.

The money will be used to complete principal photography, which is due to begin in July in Washington State.

The film’s synopsis says, ‘Colby’s dad knows his son is gay, but he doesn’t like talking about. He respects it, but ignores everything about that aspect of his son’s life – he doesn’t even know about Colby’s long-term boyfriend, Rusty.

‘Increasingly committed to Rusty, Colby hatches a plan to trick his father into camping with Rusty under the pretense that Rusty is Colby’s straight friend and future business partner. Colby is convinced that, given the chance, his father and his boyfriend will get along great…’ Chuck Sigars, Jake Street, Arthur Allen and Ellen McLain are set to star.

The film will be the directorial debut of Arthur Allen, a Seattle performer who decided to leave the theatre behind during the recession of 2008. After spending some time washing windows on the Space Needle, he decided to join the US Merchant Marine. It was during his years on ships that he wrote Winning Dad – greatly influenced by the male-dominated culture he found there.

The film hopes to take a look at how the narrative of the LGBT struggle in America will change after marriage equality is achieved, as well as tackling the generation gap that divides the country’s stances on issues of LGBT equality. (Washington State began to offer same sex marriage late last year after a popular vote approved the measure).

Director Arthur Allen describes the heart of the film as accepting complexity. “It doesn’t matter what kind complexity we’re talking about. I think that as a country, complexity terrifies us. We like things to be, if not simple, at least consistent, and homosexuality and the entire LGBT spectrum is a direct threat to that because it’s specifically complex, and that’s what the movie is about: finding a gentle way to make everybody comfortable with their own complexity and with other people’s complexity.”

Find out more over on Kickstarter.