Georgie Girl already a winner

By KATHERINE HOBY

Yesterday San Francisco, today the campaign trail.

Transsexual MP Georgina Beyer made a flying visit to San Francisco last weekend to pick up an "Excellence in Film Documentary Award" at the Frameline International Film Festival for Georgie Girl, the documentary about her life.

Not for her the drafty town halls and cups of tea in a dozen small towns on the voter trail. Ms Beyer was busy appearing at a gay pride parade with Sir Ian McKellen and picking up a trophy at a glitzy festival occasion.

The MP for Wairarapa says she was invited to pick up the prize some time ago, and was thrilled to do so, particularly as the film's directors could not attend.

"I did have to think and I was dubious about going. It is election time after all," she said.

"But it was a quick trip. You'd hardly know I was gone."

She said she was back on the campaign trail "100 per cent" on her return to New Zealand on Monday. She won the Wairarapa seat in 1999 by a 3033 vote majority.

Ms Beyer was pleased the documentary had received such acclaim.

"It's another small step for New Zealand film and I'm happy to be part of that."

While in San Francisco she also attended the Lesbian Gay Transgender Bisexual Pride Parade, which drew a crowd of half a million.

Sir Ian McKellen, one of the stars of The Lord of the Rings, was grand master at the parade.

"He actually plucked me from my seat and made quite a feature of me and of New Zealand," Ms Beyer said. "He said how progressive and forward-thinking we were here. It was quite a promotion he gave us."

Ms Beyer said she also used her overseas opportunity, and an earlier one in Australia, to encourage New Zealanders overseas to get on the electoral roll and vote.

Georgie Girl had an ecstatic audience response at the Sydney Film Festival, where it won best documentary and played before an audience of 4000.

At the San Francisco Festival, the audience gave the star of the film a standing ovation, both after the screening and during the festival award ceremony, said Annie Goldson, who co-directed the feature-length documentary with Peter Wells.

The film's American distributor says "the buzz" about the film on the West Coast of America is extremely good and there is interest in giving it a theatrical run at New York's Film Forum and in other major US cities.

Ms Goldson says she is being inundated with requests for Georgie Girl to screen in film festivals.

It is already booked for the LA International Film Festival, the Melbourne and Brisbane Festivals, the Commonwealth Documentary Festival, and the Pusan Film Festival in Korea, among others.

It has already sold to broadcasters SBS(Australia), Channel 4 (Britain), the CBC (Canada) and the Sundance Documentary Channel (US). The documentary was commissioned by TV One and screened here this year.

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