Morgan Wilcock - Project VoiceScape

Project VoiceScape filmmaker
Morgan Wilcock

PBS announced today that it will launch its first Online Film Festival and showcase of 20 short films from independent filmmakers. Featured in the selections is the Project Voicescape winner for Best Documentary This Gay and Age. This Gay and Age will be featured in in the group of films appropriately themed “Growing Pains” that will be showcased starting on Monday, March 5, 2012.

Project VoiceScape is a partnership with Adobe Youth Voices, PBS and POV to mentor today’s best young documentary filmmakers. During the making of This Gay and Age, director Morgan Wilcock was paired up with documentary filmmaker Natalia Almada (El General, Al Otro Lado, El Velador) who gave her the advice of beginning “filmmaking equipped, before anything, with a point of entry — i.e., a simple question that drives the pursuit of footage.”

In her documentary, Morgan’s line of inquiry was to uncover the role of the media and differing cultural settings in shaping today’s teen experience of sexual identity. “Television programs, popular songs, and news reports either strongly advocate gay and lesbian expression or suppress it, rarely finding middle ground,” she said. “Students, as a result, are forced to make drastic decisions about where they stand on the issue, for better or worse.”

The Online Film Festival will last from Monday, February 27 to Friday, March 30, 2012 and can be accessed via the PBS Online Film Festival website and PBS’s YouTube channel.

Watch Sizzle Reel on PBS. See more from PBS Online Film Festival.

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POV Staff
POV (a cinema term for "point of view") is television's longest-running showcase for independent non-fiction films. POV premieres 14-16 of the best, boldest and most innovative programs every year on PBS. Since 1988, POV has presented over 400 films to public television audiences across the country. POV films are known for their intimacy, their unforgettable storytelling and their timeliness, putting a human face on contemporary social issues.