It’s seven thirty in the morning. Packing up to go to school, you groggily browse through the all of the notifications in your phone. There’s an email from school.  You don’t believe your eyes at first. The email announces the death of a student, a friend from your circle, a friend you’ve spent lots of time with. How would you feel?
When she was only nineteen years old, Michele Josue lost one of her closest friends – Matt Shepard. His death attracted international attention so she promised herself to archive the story completely by doing what she knew best – film making. She would share, with the world, who Matthew Shepard really was.
Just a bit over four years ago, she set out with a small team to make “Matthew Shepard was a friend of mine.” Last Monday, she hosted an assembly at TAS, to promote and share her documentary of his life. Drama teacher Mr. Edwards told The Blue and Gold that the “presentation was incredibly impacting. I’ve had a number of students tell me that they were incredibly moved. And again, it just brought a new face to the story.”
She gave an after school workshop on interviewing skills, and visited theater classes, to give advice to TAS students on what she knows best. The main reason why she was here was to premier her documentary at our local CNEX Taipei Documentary Film Festival.
Michele Josue explains: “our film and the people in it all bear witness to the simple fact that Matt Shepard was a good person – and amazing person with a bright future who tragically fell victim to the ignorance and hatred that persists in our society today.”