I knew Nature Dazzles was going to be tough to carry out: inserting the words ‘children,’ ‘video,’ and ‘sexuality’ in the same paragraph equals trouble. But I was determined to do justice for a group of youngsters who in school environments are subjected to bullying. As a result, some of them land in self-destructive behavioural patterns or complete suicide at some stage of their lives.

 

Thanks to a professor from the Documentary Media MFA degree I was pursuing, the possibility of filming an educational program that takes place in one of a few schools in Toronto came up. It was a perfect moment to open a window into some of the pedagogical dynamics and understandings that teachers and gender non-conforming children share and profit from. Sensing that in many places around the world the advancements of the LGBT rights and freedoms were suffering a backlash on behalf of right wing groups and organizations, I emboldened myself.

 

Opposition, controversy, hurdles—open and hidden—and at some stage the possibility of someone in a position of power willing to veto the project, it all became part of my daily struggles during nine months. The project underwent all kinds of legal and institutional delays. The fact that I had a sense of what bullying and disenfranchisement can mean, and also, having fathered a lady who experienced many difficulties during her childhood, gave me the strength of not bowing down to a system that prefers to hide and bury than to lay bare, naturalize, and transform socially hurting fears and taboos.

 

The core material of the film was gathered in less than a week amid space, time, and normative constraints. Nevertheless, the results of the interviews were astonishing. Only as I started to classify the footage and to edit it, I realized that all those who had opened their hearts to the project offered the camera precious information and touching testimonies. The editing of the documentary was carried out during less than two months' time with the help of a friend.