On-Campus Screening of Champlain Students’ Documentary 'Worst Thing About Coming Out'

On Thursday, Nov. 29, Champlain College student creators of the Internet documentary film project titled "Worst Thing About Coming Out" will host a screening of the 59 minute High Definition-cut of the documentary, with discussion to follow. "Worst Thing About Coming Out" (WTACO) is a collection of first person stories about coming out as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer. The companion website,worstthingaboutcomingout.com/ , is based on the philosophy that, "Truth is healing and knowledge is empowering." The many individual interviews, with subjects looking directly into the camera, reveal each person's strength and offer inspiration to anyone interested in personal identity. The screening is free and open to the public and begins at 7 p.m. on Nov. 29 in the Perry Presentation Room at Champlain College (251 South Willard Street).

The film and website and the interviews within are informative and heartfelt. As word spreads and the number of interviews increase, a collective story is unfolding, representing a unified message of the struggles and triumphs experienced. The website will continue to collect interviews, to prolong the goal of providing access to as many first person stories about coming out as people will share.

Professor and filmmaker Rob Schmidt Barracano has led Champlain College students in making the documentary. While the website is still in its early days, actress Eliza Dushku (Buffy, True Lies, Wrong Turn) has already tweeted about it, spiking the traffic on the site to 30,000 hits in one day!

The group is determined to make WorstThingAboutComingOut.com an accessible documentary site for anyone interested in the struggle with personal identity. There has been worldwide outreach, and already WorstThingAboutComingOut.com is receiving download requests from every continent. The goal is to appeal to a broad base of people; from those who are simply curious about the stories to those that are struggling with the decision to come out — especially folks who may not have safe people to talk to and want to hear the whole story, good and bad, from as many folks who have come out as possible.

WorstThingAboutComingOut.com is also for people who know someone who may be part of the LGBT community; to get a better understanding of the struggles their friends and loved ones go through and overcome to establish who they are.

Some quotes from the interviews include:

"We were very afraid of our affection for one another."

"It took a lot of courage to have the 20 seconds of bravery to start talking."

"It's just part of who I am and there's nothing wrong with me."

"What was amazing to me, and still is, is the sheer amount of weight that was lifted once a parent knew, and once you knew they were still going to love you."

"I didn't want to cry because I didn't want them to think that I thought there was something wrong with what I was going to tell them."

"It's almost as if this one, horrible thing my family had said to me had brought us closer together."

Go online at http://www.WorstThingAboutComingOut.com to hear more.

The crew is looking for more people to interview. Contact them at their website, or by e-mail at crew@worstthingaboutcomingout.com

"Like" them on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/worstthingaboutcomingout?ref=ts&sk=wall

Follow them on Twitter @WTACO1

This project was made by Slippery Rock Pictures under the direction of Rob Schmidt Barracano.


Founded in 1878, Champlain College is a small, not-for-profit, private college in Burlington, Vermont, with additional campuses in Montreal, Canada, and Dublin, Ireland. Champlain offers a traditional undergraduate experience from its beautiful campus overlooking Lake Champlain and over 90 residential undergraduate and online undergraduate and graduate degree programs and certificates. Champlain's distinctive career-driven approach to higher education embodies the notion that true learning occurs when information and experience come together to create knowledge. Champlain College is included in the Princeton Review's The Best 384 Colleges: 2019 Edition. For the fourth year in a row, Champlain was named a "Most Innovative School" in the North by U.S. News & World Report's 2019 "America's Best Colleges,” and a “Best Value School” and is ranked in the top 100 “Regional Universities of the North” and in the top 25 for “Best Undergraduate Teaching.” Champlain is also featured in the Fiske Guide to Colleges for 2019 as one of the "best and most interesting schools" in the United States, Canada and Great Britain and is a 2019 College of Distinction. For more information, visit champlain.edu.