“Tall Tales with True Queens” Short Film To Premiere at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival

In 2015, activist and Queer mom Michelle Tea founded Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH), a now-global initiative that sees drag performers participating in creative and educational programmes for children in local libraries, book shops and community centres. Now, filmmakers Kristina Budelis and Leandro Badalotti in collaboration with them. have documented these events in a short film called Tall Tales with True Queens.

“Adults are divided over the impact this event series has on kids; there have been dozens of protests across the country and beyond,” the filmmakers wrote in a statement to them. “But ultimately, it is an event for kids. So we were curious to go to the source and see what the kids themselves thought of the event, and what their thoughts and takeaways were after attending.”

The initiative has received significant backlash and threats, from notes filled with hate speech and lawsuits claiming the events are “unconstitutional” to an armed gunman gatecrashing an event in Houston and neo-Nazi threatening a gathering in Spokane (the latter-mentioned event needed a SWAT team for protection against possible violence).

Tall Tales with True Queens will have its world premiere at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival.