Award winning gay filmmaker Tom Murray sadly passed away last Thursday aged 65.
Tom came to documentary filmmaking late in life, after a varied career that included cab driving, the Peace Corps and construction. He certainly made up for lost time: after picking up a video camera and making his first documentary, Farm Family, in 2004 he averaged a film a year.
Farm Family traces the hidden side of gay life in rural America, those people choosing to live outside the gay-safe metropolitan areas. It tells funny, surprising and sometimes frightening stories of gay rodeos, hermits, queer families and gay dairy farmers.
The less visible and often harsh side of gay life is a theme that Murray frequently returned to, becoming more of an activist as his love for documentary filmmaking grew. Other themes he explored include the Military’s ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy; gay-hate murder and sex-change reversals. With a compassionate approach he was able to bring a very human face to some tough subjects.
At the time of his death Tom Murray was working on his next gay film, a look into spirituality in the LGBT community, but it’s unknown whether this project entitled Queerituality will now be released.
Regardless of whether it does, Murray leaves behind an important legacy and his films have helped to shed light on topics and communities that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. In his own words:
I’d like to think, 20 years from now, we’ll look back and say, ‘I can’t believe we treated people like that.’”
