The 2013 Greggys: The deeply moving and inspiring “Bridegroom” is the Documentary of the Year

Bridegroom didn’t make the short list for the Academy Awards but it is the hands down winner of the 2013 Greggy for Documentary of the Year.

There are people who have told me they are afraid to watch this movie because they fear being sad or depressed.

It is, after all, about the death of a beautiful young gay man named Tom Bridegroom and its aftermath. This included his parents’ unsuccessful attempts to basically erase all evidence of his being gay including banning his partner, Shane Bitney Crone, from his funeral.

The film has many sad and frustrating moments but it also has so many beautiful and inspiring ones. It is very much about the amazing love story between Tom and Shane.

There is so much video footage and photos of these two men, together six years, that we get a wonderful sense of the life they shared. Director Linda Bloodworth-Thomason joked that more material existed of these young men than of her friend Bill Clinton who she has done a few documentaries about for political conventions.

Thank God.

We see Tom and Shane traveling the world, we see Tom singing, we see Tom giving Shane a haircut, we see them with their friends and with their families. And Shane’s video diaries give us such a window into what he suffered through and how much he has grown.

On the one year anniversary of Tom’s death, a grieving Shane poured his feelings into a YouTube video called It Could Happen to You and it changed his life.

Bloodworth-Thomason saw it and reached out to Shane about expanding it into a full-length documentary.

Shane told me over the summer: “Tom and I were just two boys who fell in love. Nothing more, nothing less. It is not a film about revenge, or making people feel sorry for me–it’s simply another love story. I think it will inspire people to live their lives honestly, to fall in love deeply, and to fight for the rights of people who are being treated like second class citizens. Love is love. Loss is loss. At the end of the day we are all human and we all just want to be happy and treated equally.’

The film was introduced by Clinton at its Tribeca Film Festival world premiere where it won the Audience Award. More audience awards followed then a high-profile airing on OWN and a tweet of support from Oprah Winfrey herself.

Bridegroom is now available on DVD, Netflix, iTunes and other distribution venues. REDBOX, which recently stopped renting out documentaries from its popular kiosks, announced earlier this month that it is making an exception and has added Bridegroom to its vast inventory of movies and games.

Shane, who turned 28 last month, has become an unexpected LGBT activist through the success of the film.

‘I want people to see that Tom and I loved each other very much, but because we weren’t married, his family and the government treated me as if I was merely his roommate,’ he told me in one of our interviews. ‘Before Tom passed away, I never considered myself an activist. I always thought the word was very intimidating and how was little old me supposed to change the world? After Tom died, I struggled to find reasons to live. I had incredibly supportive family and friends, but none of my daily activities seemed to matter anymore. Now I have learned that by sharing my story, I can help others prevent the same thing from happening.’

He added: ‘By fighting for marriage equality, others will eventually have the legal protection that Tom and I did not. I can be a face for the struggle, a voice for those screaming for equal rights. I owe it to all of the Shanes and Toms of the world to put myself out there and to stand up for equality.’