Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens this coming Monday, March 24: ALL OF ME
Alexandra Lescaze’s look at the impact of weight loss on a group of overweight female friends had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival last year. It went on to screen at Austin and the Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival, in addition to numerous community and health-based events around the country.
Lescaze explores a once-tight-knit group of friends who bonded over their common size online and at social gatherings for big women and the men who love them. As some women start pursuing surgical options to reduce their weight over health concerns, the group dynamic shifts, with jealousy and vanity leading to rifts. The film focuses on three women in particular: Dawn, who once celebrated her size as a fat fetish model, but whose weight loss has stalled out, leading to problems with her husband; Judy, whose dramatic weight loss is accompanied by a shift to holistic lifestyle; and Zsalynn, the youngest of the three, who has struggled with yo yo dieting even as she is active as a fat acceptance activist. These and the other subjects speak with emotional honesty, serving as powerful examples of the impact society’s sizeism has on us all.
what (not) to doc 