As they continue their Pride Month 2021 celebration, The Future Perfect Project shares the next films in their series of 10 personal stories from LGBTQIA+ youth, aged 13-22, about the challenges they routinely face.
The Future Perfect Project, a national arts initiative, has just shared with AWN the next two videos in their multimedia project, How Life Is: Queer Youth Animated, a special 10-episode short film series released throughout June to celebrate Pride Month 2021. The films cover the challenges that LGBTQIA+ youth, aged 13-22, routinely face, such as coming out, blended families, relationships, peer acceptance, homophobia, parity, and more.
The first four episodes of How Life Is: Queer Youth Animated premiered in pairs on June 1 (CAL and BRIANNA) and June 7 (VIVI and ZION); two new episodes have been released today, which you can watch below. The final films will be released June 22 and 29. According to The Future Perfect Project co-founder Celeste Lecesne, who wrote the 1995 Oscar-winning live-action short, Trevor, and co-founded The Trevor Project, the only nationwide 24-hour suicide prevention and crisis intervention lifeline for LGBT and Questioning youth, “The current generation of queer young people has a lot to teach us about what it means to be fully human—if only we will listen. Just as my generation fought so hard for the right to be ourselves as out gays and lesbians, this generation is fighting to be recognized and respected as the people they know themselves to be.”
How Life Is: Queer Youth Animated showcases how Generation Z is changing what it means to be LGBTQIA+. The series of two-minute films reveals that they are incredibly well informed about the world and important issues such as social justice, politics, and climate crisis.
Take a few minutes to watch two new episodes of How Life Is: Queer Youth Animated.
SARAH - animated by Mady G: When Sarah develops a crush on Kiera Knightly, her friends want her to “figure out” if she is gay or straight. “I don’t think I actually knew what bisexual was until like 6th grade, and I remember thinking, ‘Is that what I am?’”
KEN - animated by Lily Ash Sakula: For Ken, who is non-binary, holding hands with their girlfriend in public is the most intimate and vulnerable demonstration of love. “For me, at least, I want to wear my heart on my arm and not my sleeve because it’s something that I don’t want to remove.”
“Our hope is that young people all over the world will recognize their own triumphs and struggles in these animations, and will be encouraged to be themselves,” Lecesne notes. “At the same time, we hope that parents, teachers and educators will see that this isn't some old narrative about ‘struggling with sexuality.’ For youth of today, this is just HOW LIFE IS.”
Take a few minutes to read AWN’s profile piece, ‘How Life Is: Queer Youth Animated’ Shorts Celebrate Pride Month 2021, where you can also watch the first four shorts in the series.
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
