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DAZED: Steve Buscemi has made a film about a real DC homeless LGBT gang
Everybody’s favorite actor Steve Buscemi has taken his talents behind the camera for a documentary called Check It, a story focusing on a gang of LGBT kids living in Washington DC. The film has been in production for four years, and is reportedly extremely close to coming out. Buscemi is currently at Tribeca Film Festival in New York trying to raise funding for the release, with some money also going to the kids that star in the film, who are trying to get their new fashion line up and running.
In a trailer, Buscemi explains that the movie is about a group of gay and transgender youth called ‘The Check It’ who have “had to band together out of necessity, and instead of running away from the dangers that they face daily they decide to fight back.” Many of the gang have criminal records and have suffered at the hands of extreme violence, but are now pushing positive changes in their lives with the prospective launch of a new fashion label, putting on their own fashion shows and making marks as models.
Buscemi told Indiewire that one of the reasons he came on board was to ensure that this important story was told. “It’s happening in DC just a couple miles from the White House, and I don’t think these kids or their problems are really known,” he said. “When people are not exposed to gay and transgender people they can form an opinion that’s not really based on anything real, that’s just based on fear.”