“When’s the film coming out?”

When it’s done.
(Not very helpful, I know.)

When we first embarked on Meet Me at the Club: The Castro Country Club Story in June 2021, I thought I knew what film I was making.

I imagined a relatively straightforward history of the Castro Country Club—an important history, certainly, but something much more contained. Interview people. Document the history. Assemble the story.

That’s not the story we ended up capturing.

Over the last five years, we’ve conducted more than 60 interviews and captured more than 180 hours of footage. Somewhere along the way, I had to stop trying to wrestle the story into the film I had imagined and allow the material—and the people who trusted us with their stories—to tell us what the film actually wanted to become.

The story got bigger. Then, in some ways, smaller.

We widened our lens beyond just the history of the Castro Country Club itself to look at the extraordinary personal recoveries that have happened within and around it. We sat down not only with people in recovery, but with their families and loved ones, asking them what they witnessed from the other side: addiction, recovery, and the transformation of someone they love.

Then the film began taking us into places I hadn't anticipated when we started.

The intersections of recovery, drag, gender and activism became increasingly important. In particular, the stories surrounding the Club’s Mascara show revealed something I hadn’t fully understood when we began: the ways drag and the supportive community around it have given people space to safely explore gender, identity, and who they might become.

Then we had to narrow the lens again—to identify the people and stories that make the strongest film, without being afraid of the difficult choices that come with leaving other material out. As they say in film, we had to kill our darlings.

That process takes time.

Earlier this year, I essentially began the edit again with a clean slate. I’ve now reviewed all 180+ hours of footage, the material is largely logged and organized, and I’m working through the paper edit: the written blueprint of the documentary that allows us to construct its narrative from interview transcripts, archival material, scenes and visual elements before building the film itself in the editing timeline.

We’re also tentatively planning a small number of pickups, follow-up interviews and additional B-roll as the story takes its final shape.

I also want to acknowledge something directly: We have shifted our anticipated completion timeline more than once.

Part of that is simply the reality of independent filmmaking. Liberty Lane Films is a working film production company, and the commissioned projects that pay the bills sometimes have to take priority over the films we’re independently financing and developing ourselves.

This year, Vishnu and I devoted a significant amount of time to pre-production and production on Angels Everywhere, a magical memoir feature about Billie Bertan, written and directed by Ray Crist. It was a project we care deeply about—and one that, for a period, necessarily put Meet Me at the Club on the back burner.

Life happens around these films, too. Client deadlines arrive. Productions ramp up. New projects need to be developed. Personal lives occasionally demand our attention. In May, I lost my stepfather suddenly, which took me away from San Francisco to be with my mom and family. And all of that has been happening while Vishnu and I are also preparing for work that will gain considerably more steam in 2027.

But post-production on Meet Me at the Club has continued, even when that work hasn't been particularly visible from the outside.

What we’re doing now extends well beyond simply assembling a cut.

The documentary distribution landscape has changed significantly since we began this project in 2021. There was a time when an independent documentary might premiere at a mid-sized or major festival and reasonably expect that a distributor could take it from there. That is increasingly not the reality.

So we are thinking strategically—not only about how we edit the film, but about how we position it.

What is the strongest version of this story? Who is its audience? How do we make a film rooted deeply in the Castro Country Club and San Francisco's LGBTQ+ recovery community while creating something that resonates with people who have never set foot in the Castro? And how do we begin building that audience before the film ever premieres?

Our Lead Producer, Vishnu Prasad, brings valuable experience from his work as an Impact Producer on the recovery documentary The Creative High, and I’ve been fortunate to receive ongoing mentorship from Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmakers as I navigate the film through post-production.

We’re also spending substantial time on grant writing and applications, developing relationships around the film, and thinking about what an eventual impact and distribution campaign can look like.

One piece of that strategy will begin appearing next year.

Stories of Hope

As part of our post-production and grant-development work, we’re creating Stories of Hope, a limited video podcast series that will premiere sometime in mid-to-late 2027.

Over the course of making Meet Me at the Club, we have recorded far more extraordinary stories than any single feature film could possibly contain.

Some of the people featured in Stories of Hope may ultimately appear only briefly in the documentary—or may not appear in the finished film at all. But their stories matter.

The series will give us an opportunity to share longer conversations with people whose lives, recoveries and impact on the community have helped shape our understanding of the film, while introducing audiences to some of the people and ideas behind Meet Me at the Club.

It also gives us another way to build awareness, grow an audience, start a conversation, and gain momentum around the documentary well before its eventual premiere.

Moving Forward

For now, the work is straightforward, even if the process itself isn’t: finish the paper edit, determine what additional material the film still needs, capture those remaining interviews and images, and begin building the cut.

At the same time, we’ll continue pursuing grants, developing Stories of Hope, and laying the groundwork for the audience, impact and distribution strategy that will support the film once it leaves the editing room.

The goal isn’t simply to finish Meet Me at the Club. It’s to finish the right version of it—and to give that film the strongest possible life once it’s out in the world.

Thank You

There are a lot of people who have kept this project moving over the last five years, often in ways that never show up on screen.

Our equity partners and producers have continued to believe in the film as it has grown and changed. The Castro Country Club Advisory Board has trusted us with an extraordinary community and its history. More than 60 people have sat in front of our cameras and shared parts of their lives with us—and many of their families and loved ones have trusted us with their perspectives, too.

And then there are all of you who keep asking about the movie.

I mean that sincerely.

Every “How's the film going?” is a reminder that folks are excited about the film, can’t wait to see it up on the big screen. Not just because they care about the Castro Country Club, but because they want to share the CCC with the world. We're working on it. Carefully. Strategically. Sometimes slowly. But always with the goal of making the strongest film we can and giving it the best possible chance to reach the audience it deserves.

Thank you for continuing to follow along.

Yours In Community,