A film documenting the coming out gay
experience of country music singer Chely Wright will premiere next
month.
Wish Me Away will have its world
premiere on April 15 at the Nashville
Film Festival, which runs from April 14 to 21. (A trailer for
the movie is embedded in the right panel of this page.)
The movie was produced and directed by
Bobbie Birleffi and Beverly Kopf, who together run TVGals Media.
“The train has left the station,”
the women wrote in announcing the premiere of their film.
“We are thrilled to tell you that the
world premiere of Wish
Me Away will take place in Nashville, Tennessee,” they
added. “We cannot overstate the significance of Chely's bravery
and triumphant return to the city that made her dreams come true, but
at a great cost.”
Last year, Wright told People
magazine that she's a lesbian.
The 40-year-old singer has recently
fought back against suggestions that her high-profile announcement
was more a fan grab than a soul cleansing.
“They're wrong,” Wright
told lesbian website Autostraddle.com. “There's the gay
community that now knows my name and it's a long leap from the new
demographic of people who will come to my Facebook page and hit the
'Like' button to them buying my record and coming to live shows.
It's a big stretch from those new fans to make up for the fans I
lost. It didn't help my career. My record sales went directly in
half. If it appears from the outside in that it's helped my career,
it could be because I haven't talked about the negative. You won't
hear me bitching and moaning on my Facebook about the hate mail I've
gotten. My life has been threatened. I get nasty letters every day,
'I'm through with you Chely Wright, you're going to hell.'”
“In coming out I had a feeling that
it would diminish my wage earning, and that feeling was correct.
And, I am fine with that,” she added.