Light Up: Review. By Simon Thompson.

Ryan Ashely Lowery’s Light Up is an intimate documentary centring around the lives of four black gay men and one transgender black woman in the city of Atlanta, and their various life stories, dealing with  prejudices and mental health struggles due to having to hide the truth about their sexualities. What they all have in common, however is that each participant interviewed has, in their own way, managed to overcome these struggles and is fully comfortable expressing the truth about themselves. 

As a filmmaker Ryan Ashely Lowery creates a relatively relaxed, almost conversational, tone with each interview and although this might sound a little strange given how heavy the subject matter the movie deals with is, it allows the personalities being interviewed to open up, about what I can only imagine to be the darkest periods of their lives, in a gentle way. 

This approach allows the sheer resilience of each of the participants to shine through to the audience, such as Derek Jae, an already established reality tv personality, or Simone Tisci, a transgender woman who has forged a successful career as a makeup artist and is in the process of trying to build an acting career to go along with it, or Octavius Terry, who was a rising record setting American track and Field athlete who, because of his fear of his teammates and coaches finding out he was gay, decided to curtail his career to keep his sexuality a secret, yet has found success later in life as a high profile suit maker booked by various Hollywood events. 

Although there are some quieter stories in the documentary, such as that of Obio who, unlike Simone or Octavius, isn’t working in the fashion or entertainment industry, yet has still successfully fought to live his life on his own terms. The most striking story would probably belong to Ben, who to mask his sexual identity dived head first into church activities so as not to stand out, going as far as becoming a homophobic preacher – sending him down a path of total self-loathing until he made the difficult decision to come out. 

Because the interviews are all filmed separately by Ashely Lowery, it lets the audience get to know the participants of the documentary more than if they were all speaking together at the same time. The bright lighting and use of close ups, adds to the sense of familiarity that Ashely Lowery is trying to create with the documentary. 

While focusing on several individuals of course doesn’t speak for the experience of an entire group, through the people that Ashely Lowery interviews you get both a sense of the struggles they have gone through but also the comfort that they have found in reaching a point where they can be truthful about who they are. This ties into the film’s message of overall acceptance, and the wanting to break down the stigmas that are associated around the gay and trans community. Instead of beating you over the head with the film’s message however, Ashely Lowery presents it in a subtle, understated and matter of fact way simply through the interviews that are shown. 

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