November 21, 2008 5:19 AM | by Peter Knegt
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Finding His Fairies Distribution: "Were The World Mine" Director Tom Gustafson

Pictured last month at NewFest in NYC: Left to right: "Were the World Mine" actress Zelda Williams, director Tom Gustafson, writer Cory Krueckeberg, and actor Nathaniel David Becker. Photo by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally ran during indieWIRE's coverage of Outfest 2008

Four years ago, Tom Gustafson's short film "Fairies" was making a stop on its long run on the festival circuit. A 20-minute musical fantasy inspired by William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "Fairies" ended up screening at nearly 100 festivals, including Tribeca and pretty much every LGBT festival around. But it was at this particular stop in L.A. that Gustafson realized "Fairies"' potential for expansion. "Many people expressed their interest in seeing more of the story," Gustafson said in an interview with indieWIRE. "[Co-writer and producer] Cory Krueckeberg and I started developing ideas for the feature-length musical on our way home [from Outfest] and by the time we landed in New York City, we had a full outline." Now that outline has been wholly realized as "Were The World Mine." And after many successful festival screenings (and almost as many audience awards), "World" is opening tonight in New York, San Francisco and Berkeley.

"Were The World Mine" continues "Fairies" inspiration, centering around a high school production of "Midsummer's Night." One of the play's actors, outcasted, gay, and adorable Timothy (Tanner Cohen) finds a recipe for a homo-love potion hidden in the script. In the form a purple "love pansy," Timothy attains a weapon of mass sexual disorientation, transforming his small town into a bunch of lovesick queers. Extending the themes of "Midsummer's Night," Gustafson inventively explores ideas of identity and sexuality with the help of some great musical numbers and energetic performances.

The film's distinctive fantasy found an additional muse in Gustafson's own upbringing. "While growing up gay in a small farm town, you find ways to escape," he said. "My escapes usually involved film and performance." This also led Gustafson to find his calling. "In a cliche theatre-dork kind of way, I always found ways to turn class projects into some sort of performance or video project. I loved obsessing over how to master glitch-free VCR to VCR editing. When I got older, I got a job at a tiny cinema as the manager and projectionist, which fueled my obsession and led me to enrolling in film school at Northwestern University."

Since then, he's worked in photography and in the casting departments of a slew of studio films, including "Road To Perdition" and the "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequels. "I've been lucky enough to be able to balance working on big-budget films with my own films," he said. "My work on those big-budget films has been a great learning experience and source of determination: working with actors, amazing directors and seeing first hand the mistakes and successes of day-to-day decisions made by producers and directors on the largest level. I have taken away a great deal of knowledge on 'how to' and the 'how not to' create film. The goal with my work, on the producing side, has always been to bridge the indie film and big-budget mentalities - from subject matter and style to production and distribution. There is a lot that each side of that equation can learn from the other side."

A scene from Tom Gustafson's "Were The World Mine." Image courtesy of Speak Productions.

But, while "World"'s production values evidence how Gustafson bridged the stylistic worlds, defying its small budget, the film's status as a gay indie musical might make that a harder gap to fill when it comes to distribution. "While I absolutely respect the history of 'gay film' and fully appreciate the existence of distribution opportunities specific to gay content, I think films are too often immediately categorized and labeled," he admitted. "This can be extremely harmful to a film and its ability to reach a larger audience. I think 'World' is simply an indie with major gay characters but unfortunately people still feel the need to immediately put it in a 'gay box' or the 'gay closet."

So far in the festival circuit, "World" has managed to screen in and out of that closet. It won major awards at both the Florida Film Festival and Nashville Film Festival, as well as LGBT-centric fests like Toronto's Inside Out. But it has been a challenge. "Unfortunately, it has affected our 'mainstream' festival play. We have been told by numerous festivals that the film is 'too gay' for their audiences. Which is ridiculous - it's like saying that a film with heterosexual characters is 'too straight' for gay & lesbians to appreciate, which I don't think anyone would ever say."

Getting beyond the festivals has been a tough challenge, so far. "The fact that audiences often, literally, stand and cheer at the end of 'World' has frankly been bittersweet knowing that more people [would] not get to experience the film in a theatrical setting," he said. "Most likely based on the 'gay film' label alone, we haven't been able to get any 'mainstream' distributors to a screening, which is frustrating because they are passing on a film that has immense theatrical potential without ever experiencing it. Watching it on a DVD is a completely different experience. And based soley on the viewing of screeners, several distributors have said 'I love it, but we lost money on (insert gay indie title) so we can't take that chance again.'"

Gustafson's experiences are likely a similar story for many LGBT filmmakers and producers in this new age of "indie." LGBT-themed indies have been lucky to expand to more than 10 screens in the past few years, and even more lucky to crack a few $100,000 at the box office. "Media is already so controlled," he said in regard to the "gay indie"'s recent troubles. "What we actually get to see and experience and what is literally forced down our throats - represents such a small percentage of what is out there. People really have to search for things outside of what is available at the multiplex and this label contributes to that problem."

But for "World," a direct-to-Here! release is even more inappropriate than the average "gay indie." "One of our goals with 'World' was to create a film that feels like a live theatrical experience and from our festival screenings, it's clear that audiences have been enjoying it in that way," Gustafson said. "It has been playing to unbelievably enthusiastic sold-out audiences and it's been extremely exciting to see the film play so well at LGBT festivals as well as 'mainstream' festivals. So before making it available on DVD and cable, we are [going to] give it the theatrical run that it deserves and allow people to truly 'experience' the film the way it was intended."

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Dave-Andreas | June 27, 2011 8:29 AMReply

I will admit that "Were the World Mine" took me by surprise. The terms "Indie" and "gay character" were enough to leave me with an "oh no" sense of apprehension. That the film was centred on Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" did much to warm me to the film (how wrong can one go with Shakespeare?). Of course, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is something that is hard to pigeon-hole with its "gone wrong" premise and mix-up of lovers. I assumed that the "gay character" had something to do with a parallel "mix-up" in the heart of the film, and I was not disappointed. I did not realise that the film was a musical, which became the most pleasant surprise of all. Here, the music is no manufactured inappropriate rock tune cobbled onto a film Hollywood style, but so listener friendly, spirited, and seemingly spontaneous that it fits the film like a glove. There are times, when the music mades the film direct and immediate, as well as entertaining, and an revelation. The mix-up does much to point to the mindless rheortic and sound-bite glib religious babble, that too often finds its way into news and into American religious-nut-job protests (that are always removed from context to fit the "agenda" and are academically void of honour or honesty). My great complaint, is that when such issues are brought to the forefront, and about to be addressed, the film changes course--almost timidly, rather than expose the notion or issue. I would have preferred that the issues brought to the foreground be touched upon a little less lightly. The transition from fantasy to reality, was not always smooth or clear, except in context. A few times there was enough of a jump in the story, that it seemed something had ended on the cutting room floor. The voice of the male lead Tanner Cohen, is truly magnificent, even when in the stretch of his upper register. I wanted to hear more of him. Nathaniel David Becker, has a similarly amazing voice, and wonderful diction (as well his acting style is quite natural--he is as convincing as non-gay, as much as he is convincing as gay). I could listen to Tanner Cohen for hours and never tire of his singing voice. (The use of drums in the music, is unusual, and with those portions of the Shakespeare play, the drums are very appropriate and unobstrusice.) One will not find sex, but there is some male/male and female/female kissing, and one small scene of a male in a dress and heels--totally devoid of camp, or gay stereotyping. An annoyance, was when the character "Max" was changed by the "potion" and the main character continued to promise to "fix the problem" but never did (one wonders where the scriptwriter missed that error since it did not work in either the story or as a plot device). There are several places where there is dancing or implied dancing. Don't expect great technique, but it is brief and filmed in ways, that is does work, and that is it not offensive. At least, the dance sequences were portrayed as more fun than serious, which fit the spirit of the film. As in the article ("Finding His Fairies Distribution: “Were The World Mine” Director Tom Gustafson" by Peter Knegt (November 21, 2008) ), the film is more than a gay film: it is a pleasing entertainment; not heavy, not light. I would have preferred to have seen the film in a theatre, but that was not to happen in my American, small-city neighbourhood. In the end, I would watch this film again and again. While not great film-making, in the classical sense, it is palatable and entertaining--and does hold up to subsequent viewing. Overall, the music is the best part of the film, and, as noted above, Tanner Cohen makes the songs wondeful enough to watch the film for those alone. This is a fun film.