Lithuania isn't exactly a bastion of gay rights, but this hasn't stopped Romas Zabarauskas, an openly gay filmmaker who lives in the Eastern European country, from telling his story. The young auteur recently ran an online campaign to raise funds for a feature length, gay-themed film, where donors got a photo of the cutie-patootie in his birthday suit.
SF Weekly caught up with Zabarauskas about his work, and about life for LGBT people in a region where it's still not safe to be gay.
SF Weekly: Tell us your coming out story and what it's like to be gay in Lithuania.
Zabarauskas: I came out when I was 16. I remember my mom was driving, and I was sitting next to her, and I just told her. Now that I think of it, it could have been dangerous, yet she was totally cool with it. As were the rest of my family and close friends. I'm lucky, I live in the capital city, and the people who surround me are open minded. However, since I became kind of like a public speaker for LGBT rights in the Lithuanian media, I get a lot of Facebook messages from young people in smaller cities that share terrible experiences of how they are mocked at school, how they can't express themselves, or they are afraid to talk with their homophobic parents.
