‘Flyover Country’

LGBT movie to premiere in Ramsey Theater

Sarah Lentz, Staff Writer

On Feb. 20, Jim Fields will have his second movie premier at Wayne State College. The writer/director of “Bugeaters” is bringing his new movie “Flyover Country” to Ramsey Theater.

“Flyover Country” is an LGBT dramedy set in the Midwest. The film follows two friends who meet in a college class. The friendship is tested as soon as one of the men finds out the other is gay.

Throughout “Flyover Country,” the duo deals with friends’ and families’ prejudices and their own identities.

“After the success of my last movie ‘Bugeaters,’ I knew I wanted to switch from making documentaries to low budget feature films,” Fields said. “However, I didn’t want to make something trivial, so I decided to make something more challenging.”“Flyover Country” aims to show the difficulties of being gay in the mostly conservative Midwest. Fields and his other co-writers pulled experiences in the movie from real life.

“There are very few films made about the difficulty of being gay or questioning one’s sexuality in the Midwest. We based our story on people we’ve known here and on local events,” said Fields.

Though the last year has seen growth in the rights and acceptance of the LGBT community, Fields sees room for more open-mindedness.

“I think we live in a fragmented society…where it’s easy for many extreme conservatives to have an aggressive point of view without considering how it personally affects other people, especially as it applies to those in the LGBT community,” Fields said. “We may not always agree with the lifestyle choices of others, but I think it’s important that we still accept and respect them as human beings and that we learn to practice tolerance.

“I knew I wanted to bring ‘Flyover Country’ to this area so I decided to contact the school to see if WSC’s gay/straight alliance would like to help sponsor the showing. When I spoke with Bart Carithers, he had the idea to bring the movie directly to WSC and have a free show for students, which I think is a great idea.”