Just Me?

Approximately half of the LGBT community grow up without known lesbian, gay, or transgendered relatives. In Just Me?, director Amy Neil talks about what it's like to feel like “the odd girl out” within one's own family…or so she thought. After a childhood spent in California, Neil moved to New York, living openly as a gay woman with her partner Lynda. When a visiting cousin mentions that Neil's great-grandmother Nana often attended family reunions with a woman named Betty, the filmmaker is propelled into an investigation of her ancestor. By 1942, Nana was a war widow, and relatives assumed the unmarried Betty was gay, but was Nana? As Neil narrates the story, she intercuts still images, including a picture she took as a young girl, to reconstruct her great-grandmother's past (Nana lived with the Neil family in her later years). In post-war photos of Nana and Betty, the pair appear to be more than friends, and as Neil digs deeper into Nana's vast archives, she finds numerous parallels between their relationship and her own with Lynda. A touching story of personal discovery, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)