Katherine Linton is an award-winning producer/director whose documentaries have aired on Discovery, VH1, Bravo, TLC, and A&E. She wrote and produced AIDS: A Pop Culture History for VH1 (Cable Poz Award for Best History Documentary); Black Las Vegas: In Through the Backdoor for TLC; and The Junkie Next Door: Women and Heroin for A&E's Investigative Reports. Linton brought gay and lesbian issues to a national audience throughout the 1990's as senior producer and host of PBS's In the Life. In 2004 Her company Linton Media Inc. produced The Evolution Will Be Televised for Viacom's LOGO channel in 2005. Linton Media is currently producing a segment of The Addiction Project for HBO.

When we embarked on this project to film the re-recordings of the music from Hedwig for a compilation benefiting the Hetrick-Martin Institute (home of the Harvey Milk High School for LGBTQ), we envisioned it as a raucous journey that would marry gender, sexuality, and rock, true to the spirit of the tremendous work that is Hedwig and the Angry Inch. What we did not know was how inspired we would be, not just by the incredible kids, but also by the album's artists and producers. Kim and Kelley Deal of The Breeders drove all night in the rain and snow just to get to the studio. Why did the artists want to get involved? Because as artists and iconoclasts they knew that in a world that seeks to polarize and compartmentalize, voices from the "outside" need to be louder than ever to rise above the din. The Harvey Mudd students we followed were, indeed, loud and clear. Despite all that they had to endure-societal discrimination, abuse at their former schools, financial restraints-they rose above it all, proclaiming who they were over and over again, without hubris, just humanity. These children would have probably not found this conviction or strength so early on were it not for HMI and the support they received there.

The irony is that all of us wish there was no need for the Hetrick-Martin Institute or the Harvey Milk High School. We wish that every one of the kids in our film and the hundreds of other kids who benefit from the institute could just go to high school or an after-school program anywhere and be safe. But as Stephen Trask says in our film: "If anti-gay violence were counted as a hate crime, and violent homophobes were removed from high school and sent to a reform school, then maybe we wouldn't need this."

In the making of this film we were able to witness the sort of hope and inspiration that only true diversity can bring, and we are thrilled that through the Tribeca Film Festival we can bring that to you.