New Doc Features Interviews With Lady Gaga, Billy Porter, and Dionne Warwick
The life and legacy of Archbishop Carl Bean, a trailblazing Black queer activist, Motown singer, and founder of the nation’s first LGBTQ+ church for people of color: takes center stage in a new feature documentary that premiered June 5 at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Titled I Was Born This Way, the film traces Bean’s extraordinary path from a turbulent childhood in Baltimore to his unexpected rise in the music industry with the 1977 disco hit “I Was Born This Way,” later recognized as one of the first gay anthems. The song’s enduring message would go on to influence a new generation, including Lady Gaga’s chart-topping tribute “Born This Way.”
Directed by Oscar and Emmy-winning filmmakers Daniel Junge and Sam Pollard, the documentary is executive produced by Questlove, Billy Porter, and Jamie Lee Curtis. It features interviews with Lady Gaga, Dionne Warwick, Rep. Maxine Waters, and Porter, along with archival footage and striking rotoscope animation.
You can watch the trailer here:
Bean’s journey took a transformative turn when he left music to champion social justice and spiritual inclusion. He founded Unity Fellowship Church Movement, a safe haven for LGBTQ+ individuals of color, and launched the Minority AIDS Project to confront the HIV/AIDS epidemic in underserved communities.
Six years in the making, the documentary offers a layered portrait of a man whose message of radical love reshaped conversations around faith, race, and sexuality.
Following its Tribeca debut, I Was Born This Way is scheduled to screen at DC/DOX in Washington, D.C., Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco, and Sheffield DocFest in the U.K.
Junge and Pollard previously collaborated on They Killed Sister Dorothy, which was nominated for an Emmy and short-listed for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
