"Our Time To Sing" - Documentary R&D Funding

“Our Time To Sing” (documentary, working title)

Every four years, over 120 LGBTQ+ choirs from across Europe - from Turkey to Norway, and Poland to the UK - gather together for four days of singing, listening, and celebrating queerness at the largest choir festival on the continent - Various Voices. Over 5000 singers belt out anthems, search for meaning in small ensemble music, and grapple with a changing world.

This 90-minute documentary follows a cast of singers from across the continent, and their personal and musical journeys in contemporary Europe. It is set at a time where the LGBTQ+ community faces the rise of a new far-right, an epidemic of loneliness amongst its ageing members, and an internal struggle to represent the wide breadth of identities brought together under its name.

Our characters’ stories are as messy and diverse as the community itself and offer a “State of the European Queer Union” - told through the unique lens of music making. This is a joyous and bold documentary, but it is also deeply political. Delving into the individual storylines, it captures the conflicts that threaten to unravel hard fought rights and exasperate personal differences. As the Various Voices festival brings together all our characters, we discover: Can a gathering of 5000 singers offer a place of protest and respite?

How the idea came about

My name’s Julia Alcamo and I am a German-American documentary director based in the UK. I identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community and part of my work is about telling our stories - exploring queer identity, history, and culture across time and place. My previous work includes the Grierson-award-winning short Ted & Noel on UK queer legend Ted Brown, which you can watch on the Them YT channel here .

Me with my fellow EQC-lers Mike and Paul in Brussels, 2024!

Since February last year, I’ve been a member of the European Queer Choir and I attended my first choir festival in the summer of 2024, Hand in Hand in Bristol. It was a transformative experience. I had never witnessed such queer joy, reverberating through the halls, the voices welcoming parts of my identity I didn’t realise needed affirming!

I immediately signed up for the Europe-wide festival Various Voices, which takes place every four years, with the next event happening in a year’s time, June 2026, in Brussels - Europe’s capital. It made me think how this event and the European musical choir community generally would offer a unique access point to exploring the European LGBTQ+ identity. What does it mean to be queer in Europe today?

I started speaking to people within the community and found fascinating stories everywhere I looked. I spoke to the researcher Thomas Hilder about his work on the subject - Why does music offer such a unique setting, choirs such a unique environment to experience the queer identity in?

What has evolved out of this early research is an idea for a musical journey across the continent, revealing both dystopian and utopian versions of what our lives look like and our futures might hold. I now want to take this a step further and conduct in-person research that will allow me to put together a pitch deck for European-wide funding of a feature documentary.

Why make this film?

We are experiencing a period of significant unrest in Europe, during which the LGBTQ+ community faces a range of social and political challenges. These include an epidemic of loneliness among our aging population, the rise of far-right conservatism across the continent, increasing harassment and exclusion of queer people, widespread propaganda, and the ongoing challenge to accommodate for all the diverse letters that LGBTQ+ entails.

“Our Time To Sing” uses the choir as a microcosm to explore these issues. Often places of home-finding for members of the LGBTQ community, how do those choirs offer a place of respite, but also resistance? In a climate of great uncertainty, how do they become our “chosen family” but also bring out our differences?

The documentary uses music as a unique entry point into the LGBTQ+ community—particularly for audiences who might not otherwise choose to watch films about queer stories. Behind the scenes, the ambition is to bring together a queer creative team from across Europe, allowing us to connect, collaborate, and exchange storytelling skills and industry insights.

What am I fundraising for?

I am in the early stages of researching and developing my documentary idea. This involves getting to know choirs and individual members across Europe. Right now, this means speaking to people, meeting them in-person, recording filmed material to develop story and creative vision. This will allow me to develop a pitch deck to help raise further funds for the project.

My first trip takes me to Poland where EQC will be rehearsing in late September and we will be hosted by Voces Gaudi. I have already established a relationship with a variety of Voces Gaudi members and while there, I will meet them in person and aim do filming of interviews and select unfolding material.

As it’s very difficult to get early R&D funds in my industry, I have chosen to run a crowdfunder to raise this cash. The fundraiser is specifically for this Research & Development phase. It includes costs associated with upcoming trips to Poland (September) and potentially a remote shoot in Ukraine (later fall). It will also help cover UK and Germany-based travel and research. It includes, but isn’t necessarily limited to: