One: A Story of Love and Equality

Support the film on Kickstarter! 

About One 

This is a film about compassion, empathy, and building bridges. This is a film about you. This is a film about me. This is a film about people.

A few years ago, my college organized a prom for the LGBT high school students in the neighboring conservative rural Ohio town.  We were met with dozens of angry protesters, all old enough to be these kids’ parents, screaming excerpts from the Bible, and declaring that we were all going to hell. While the few kids who weren’t scared away from the whole event stayed inside the building, a bunch of us went outside to confront the protesters. They were yelling their beliefs, and we were yelling ours right back at them. We called them ignorant. They called us sinners. We were all extremely heated, and the experience was cathartic.

These kinds of conversations happen every day. And nothing gets accomplished.

I realized that pontificating and hailing insults would never drive people to see where I was coming from; it would just drive us further and further apart.

Ultimately, it drove me to make this film.

Ever since then, I dreamed of one day making a documentary that approached the issue of gay rights from a different perspective: one of compassion, empathy, and relating as human beings.

Then, in the fall of 2011, when I heard about the proposed constitutional amendment in North Carolina, a place that is very politically divided and often considered a swing state,  I knew I had my film. I launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the project, and it was so heartening to find out how many other people, friends and strangers alike, wanted to see this film get made and see these conversations happen. Soon I found myself in the breathtaking mountains of North Carolina, reaching out to as many different people as I could, trying to get to know them as people and  find out where they’re coming from.

The original title of the film was Hear Our Stories, but after spending months talking people from all walks of life, who on the surface appear as though they could not be more different from one another, I realized something. Something that I was hoping to find all along: People are people. And we are all one.

- Becca Roth, Director

The film is currently in post production.

To make a donation and help get this film made, click here.

One: A Story of Love and Equality – Extended Trailer from Becca Roth on Vimeo.

The Team

Becca Roth

Director, Cinematographer, Editor

Becca Roth has been writing stories and screenplays since before she was old enough to type.

When she was little, she would pace back and forth in her family’s computer room while her
mom transcribed Becca’s excited spouting of The Wizard of Oz 2: Dorothy’s Roller-Blading
Adventure. (The film has yet to be produced.) Becca made her first short film, Kings and
Queens, at the age of seventeen, and has been writing and directing ever since.

She graduated from Kenyon College in 2010, where she studied film, drama, anthropology,
and finding four leaf clovers. After spending her first year out of college working for tips and
crewing on other people’s projects, she set out to make her first independent film. With her
tip money, she made Rain in Summer, a short film that went on to screen at nearly a dozen
film festivals nationwide, picking up several awards along the way.

Now she is hard at work editing her first feature-length documentary, One: A Story of Love
and Equality. She is extremely passionate about this project, and can’t wait to see where it
will go.

Becca lives in Brooklyn with her girlfriend and two mischievous kittens, Oliver and Twist
(both female).

Melina Marini

Producer 

Late one November evening, Becca burst out of her bedroom and announced to Melina that she
wanted to make a documentary about an upcoming amendment vote in May 2012. Melina not
only encouraged her, but hopped on board as the project’s producer.

What transpired was an experience that Melina will cherish forever. Not only did she meet
incredible people, explore a beautiful state, and eat delicious barbecue, but she learned a great
deal about what both sides are truly fighting for, on a human and personal level. She hopes
this film will open the country to dialogue about marriage equality and to the humanity behind
this issue. She also hopes it will allow for conversations between marriage equality and traditional
marriage supporters, citizens and lawmakers, and red and blues states.

Melina Marini grew up in Trumbull, CT. She received her B.A. in Music at Mount Holyoke
College in 2008. In addition to film making, she is the music director of New York City’s own
Empire A Cappella.

Laura Goehrke

Producer 

Laura met Becca in college, and they became fast friends during their Anthropology
seminar coffee breaks. After graduation in 2010, Laura moved to DC to take a job in
Production with the Travel Channel, but she and Becca still kept in touch frequently,
especially to talk about their hopes and dreams as directors and producers. Once Laura saw
the first draft of the extended trailer for One, she called Becca immediately and said she
wanted to get involved, especially to help to fundraise and promote the message. She is
extremely happy and proud to be a part of the team for this documentary, and believes that
the message and story will resonate with everyone who sees it.

Laura Goehrke has been studying and performing improv at the DC IMPROV in Washington
D.C. since 2011. She’s currently in a long form troupe called OverCommitted, and a musical
elf rap group called Sugar Plum Express. She graduated from Kenyon College, where she
majored in Anthropology, played Varsity Women’s Basketball all four years, and was the most
talented backwards-walking tour guide on campus. She grew up near Cleveland, Ohio, and she
has an affinity for corgis, Uglydolls, and stripes.

Meredith Tyma

Marketing and Social Media

Meredith is a marketing strategist and all-around media enthusiast. She grew up in Pittsburgh
and made her way to rural Ohio to attend Kenyon College, where she met Becca. Her interest
in integrated media was sparked by her time producing weekly campus-wide social events,
writing for the campus paper, and managing staged productions. After moving to New York
City, she took to the streets as a production contractor with companies from Jack Morton
Worldwide to Cosmopolitan Magazine, developing integrated marketing events for Fortune
500 companies and coordinating the openings of international broadcast studios. One of her
favorite projects was the short independent film Rain in Summer with Becca, for which she
took on the work of Associate Producer and Social Media/Marketing Manager. Since early
2012, she has used her marketing and project management background to jumpstart her career
in digital marketing at the creative optimization start-up Spongecell.

Meredith currently lives in Manhattan. She plans to spend 2013 learning how to cook
authentic Italian dishes, traveling to Asia, and taking on more dynamic projects in broadcast
television.

Molly Cahen

Outreach and Social Media

Molly Cahen has been writing and performing comedy since 2007.  In New York, she
performs improv with Dr. Doctor, a house team at the People’s Improv Theater. She
has created a handful of sketch comedy videos with the help of Becca’s filmmaking
abilities. Molly is excited to spend the spring with Becca developing a screenplay for
the feature-length romantic comedy, Date My Roommate.

Molly is thrilled to be joining the Tip Jar team to support One: A Story of Love and Equality.  The
project is an inspiring tapestry of personal stories unfolding during a critical time for our
country.  Molly leant her car to the North Carolina filming, but she looks forward to
contributing a bit more directly now that Becca and the film are back in New York for
post-production.