Director Ryan WhitePhotograph by Austin Hargrave Growing up in Dunwoody, Ryan White’s mother would drive him into Atlanta every weekend to see a movie. “I’ve been a movie nerd since I was a little kid,” the documentarian tells Atlanta magazine. “I don’t know where it came from. I just h ad a supportive mom who was willing to take me.” Off the top of his head, White remembers watching Fargo, Boys Don’t Cry, Natural Born Killers—which his mother tried and failed to make them leave early—and numerous other indie films that “suburban Atlantans weren’t seeing” at the Tara. White takes a pause and can’t help but smile with pride as he notes, “Come See Me in the Good Light just played at the Tara. That was a full circle moment because it was a very formative theater for me.” Over the past 15 years, White has established himself as one of the most entertaining and captivating documentary filmmakers working in American cinema. White’s work has explored Pamela Anderson, the unsolved murder of nun Catherine Cesnik, and the story of a Mars rover exploring the planet, to name a few of his films. Come See Me in the Good Light, though, has earned White his first Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature. The film, which streams on Apple TV, celebrates the life, work, career, and activism of Andrea Gibson, the late poet who garnered a legion of fans as a spoken-word artist. As well as exploring their work about identity, trauma, sex, and love, Come See Me in the Good Light also candidly shows Gibson’s battle with terminal ovarian cancer. Atlanta magazine recently spoke with White about how growing up in Atlanta inspired him to become a documentary filmmaker, his love for Southern stories, and his connection to Gibson’s poetry. Late poet Andrea Gibson and their partner, Megan Falley, in Come See Me in the Good LightPhotograph courtesy of Apple TV Was there any moment growing up in Atlanta that inspired you to become a filmmaker? I went to Chamblee High School. I had a great teacher there named Mr. Smiley. He taught photography, which included documentary and nonfiction photography. That’s where my love of nonfiction came from. I ended up at Duke University in North Carolina, which had the Center for Documentary Studies. That’s where I combined the two passions of filmmaking and photography. There is one film that I can point to as the defining film for me: Agnes Varda’s The Gleaners And I. It came out in 2000. I saw it at Duke. It blew my mind. I don’t think I’d ever seen a movie documentary. I’d probably seen a TV documentary growing up. But I remember, from that instance, thinking, Oh my God! I want to learn to do what she’s doing. Why documentary? I love both documentary and nonfiction. I could have gone down either path. But when I think of myself as a little kid, I was a very quiet and shy kid. I still am, but I’m a really good listener. I was always known for that in school; people came to me with their stories or their problems. I had this natural curiosity about the world that lent itself really well to photography. I would just kind of wander around Atlanta with my camera. Whenever I would travel outside of Atlanta, I’d have my camera, too. I’d be taking photos of strangers. I was very curious and empathetic. That definitely lent itself to the skill set that it takes to make a good documentary. I remember in my freshman year of college, our first assignment was to go out and strike up a conversation with a stranger and record it. I ended up making a documentary about this woman later in my life. But I always go back to that exercise. It forced me outside of my comfort zone [and] made me more extroverted. I think I had to learn that confidence as well. But I was well-suited, as a listener. I think that’s still probably my favorite part about doing what I do, listening to people and collaborating with them on telling their story. How has being from Georgia shaped and inspired your creative voice? It was hugely formative. I’ve always been very interested in Southern stories. Also, I grew up in a part of Atlanta and went to schools that were extremely diverse, where being white was the minority. I grew up around people of all different backgrounds. That for sure shaped my curiosity in people that come from different walks of life. So many people that I grew up with are still my best friends, even going back to fourth grade. Then, of course, I didn’t know I was gay. But being a queer kid in the South, having to come to terms with that, eventually coming out of the closet, and making my way out into the larger world shaped me, too. Now I live in Los Angeles, [and] it’s very important to remember my own personal trajectory and continue to tell queer stories. Andrea’s story is somewhat similar to mine. They came from a small town in a part of the country where people weren’t out. Andrea really had to find their own path in life. Sometimes that means taking a path out of where you came from and then returning back. Andrea Gibson in Come See Me in the Good LightPhotograph courtesy of Apple TV When did you come across Andrea’s work? When I met them, I had never heard of Andrea. I’m not a poetry person. I’m friends with [comedian and producer] Tig Notaro, [who] had been friends with Andrea for 25 years. It was Tig who brought me the idea because I had been saying for a long time that I wanted to do a comedy documentary. I definitely wasn’t expecting her to bring me a cancer poetry film, which doesn’t sound funny at all. The poetry part was honestly a big turn off at the beginning. But then I watched Andrea’s poetry and performances and they blew me away. I’ll never forget the first one that I watched was a poem called “Guardian Angel Fish” that Andrea had written for their partner, Megan Falley. It’s a love poem after their cancer diagnosis. I just remember how hard I was laughing during the poem. I was also tearing up by the end. Tig also said [Andrea] was one of the funniest people she’d ever known throughout her life. Andrea is confronting the end of life with this remarkable perspective, but they’re also incredibly funny. Tig is one of the funniest people I know, so I believed her when she said that. What do you hope audiences take away from the film? It’s something I don’t really think about a ton. I want people to be moved. I want to make films where the audience has some sort of transformative experience. I know what I take away. I have seen a myriad of ways that Andrea and Megan’s stories have impacted people in totally different ways. They have totally different stories. One of them has cancer. One of them is a caretaker. That is two huge portions of our populace. I’ve never been a caretaker to the extent that Megan has. But so many caretakers that have seen our film are so moved by Megan’s story because it’s not represented a lot in films. Andrea would say all the time, “Ryan, don’t let it take what happened to me for you to see the beauty in life.” That is why they participated in this film. They felt like they had this awakening post-diagnosis. They wanted to share that with me and, hopefully, the audience. Don’t let it be too late to have that awakening. I’ve seen a lot of people coming out of this film wanting to live life a little bit differently. If people find some inspiration to live their life a little bit differently, then I think we did our job. 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