{"id":929850,"date":"2026-07-12T12:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T12:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/929850\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T12:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T12:44:14","slug":"why-san-diego-filmmaker-elliott-kennerson-co-directed-a-film-about-lesbian-seagulls-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/929850\/","title":{"rendered":"Why San Diego filmmaker Elliott Kennerson co-directed a film about lesbian seagulls \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Diego filmmaker Elliott Kennerson has a long history with nature filmmaking, and his latest project \u2014 \u201cLove Birds,\u201d<\/a> about lesbian seagulls \u2014 takes him down a familiar path. But with this one, he saw an opportunity he just couldn\u2019t pass up.<\/p>\n

\u201cNatural history films have an unfortunate addiction, in my opinion, to storytelling that naturalizes human \u2014 stick with me \u2014 heteronormativity,\u201d he said. \u201cThe stories tend to be about Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear. You see a lot of Noah\u2019s Ark, two-by-two, a lot of dating and romance and family. If you watch nature shows, you know what I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m OK with anthropomorphism, but so often it\u2019s bigotry masked as metaphor,\u201d said Kennerson,<\/a> who attended Del Mar Hills Academy and The Bishop\u2019s School before pursuing a bachelor\u2019s degree in archaeology from Yale and master\u2019s in natural history filmmaking from Montana University. \u201cScientists are confirming more and more that what most people call normal in terms of gender and sexuality is not at all the norm in nature. In my opinion, it\u2019s patently obvious that the sexually monogamous straight couple and the nuclear family are the actual unnatural state for our species. So yes, I saw the opportunity to tell a different story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"George<\/a>George Hunt (back row, second from right), Molly Warner (back row, right) with filmmakers Elliott Kennerson (standing, left) and Angel Morris (front row, right), and crew members during filming of the documentary.(Perfect Four Productions)<\/p>\n

The 27-minute documentary \u201cLove Birds,\u201d which he co-directed with now-Sweden-based filmmaker Angel Morris, explores the work of married couple and University of California Irvine researchers George Hunt and Molly Warner, who in 1972 made an unprecedented discovery while studying seagulls on Channel Islands off the California coast: about 14% of the gull pairs were comprised of two females. Their study, which pointed to widespread same-sex pairing in nature, sparked a cultural debate across the country when it was published in Science magazine in 1977.<\/p>\n

The documentary \u2014 filmed on Santa Barbara Island, one of the Channel Islands \u2014 will be screened July 15 in a special Pride Week presentation by the San Diego Natural History Museum and the San Diego Bird Alliance. After the screening, Kennerson will talk about the film and share insights on why it\u2019s important.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe story is interesting to me as a historical blip that I would like younger generations of LGBTQ people to know about,\u201d said Kennerson, an Emmy Award-winning writer, editor, producer and post-production specialist.<\/p>\n

Kennerson, who was born in La Jolla and grew up in Del Mar, took some time from a film project in Wyoming to talk about \u201cLove Birds,\u201d which has been selected for nearly 40 film festivals and won many awards, including the Prix de Jury at the F\u00e9stival International du Film Ornithologique in M\u00e9nigoute, France.<\/p>\n

\"Filmmakers<\/a>Filmmakers Elliott Kennerson (second from right) and Angel Morris (right) with crew during filming of the documentary.
\n(Perfect Four Productions)<\/p>\n

Q: Tell me about the genesis of this film and how it landed in your hands?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> At the time, I was working with my co-director Angel Morris, who is also the film\u2019s editor, at a San Diego production company (on the PBS series \u201cHuman Footprint\u201d). Angel is a trans non-binary person, I\u2019m a gay man, and we had gravitated to each other as both members of the LGBTQ community. There just aren\u2019t that many of us in the natural history film industry. They came to me one day and said, \u201cDid you know about the lesbian seagulls?\u201d Which I did, because of the Beavis and Butthead movie from the \u201890s. But it turns out the story actually isn\u2019t that well known.<\/p>\n

Q: Did you already know much about the groundbreaking work by George Hunt and Molly Warner?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> I did know about lesbian seagulls, but not the details or its importance as the first scientifically published about homosexual behavior in the animal kingdom. There is a book called \u201cBiological Exuberance\u201d that compiled all the published science on the subject up to 1999. Angel and I found George Hunt\u2019s name in there. We put on our reporter hats and tracked them down, reached out, and lucky for us, they were willing to cooperate with us. By now, they both feel like family.<\/p>\n

Q: When you first set out on the project, what was your main goal and how dedicated were you along the way to sticking to that goal?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> Our initial goal was to bring this story to light for a new generation. At first, we thought we\u2019d focus narrowly on the natural history of the birds and expected to use George and Molly merely as experts. But in so many ways, we kept lucking out on the story, and one stretch goal led to another. More and more layers of story revealed themselves, especially as we got to know George and Molly better. So as you can see in the film, the natural history drifted from the center of the film to the periphery, and we began to focus on George and Molly\u2019s relationship and the context and significance of the discovery. Pivoting like that was an exhilarating process for me because I\u2019ve always worked on TV shows where you don\u2019t have as much flexibility.<\/p>\n

Q: What was the most challenging part of working on this documentary?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> Usually, if you ask a filmmaker that question, they\u2019ll say finding funding. In this case, we didn\u2019t have that problem. The film was funded by a single grant from NBC\u2019s education wing, for which we consider ourselves lucky and we are so grateful. The biggest challenge logistically has been the fallout of Donald Trump\u2019s presidency in the media landscape. Without going into detail, I\u2019ll say that all of us in the media have been struggling to find a way forward, which has been a challenging thing to navigate on top of making the film. Any film is an endurance game \u2014 it\u2019s not always as fun as people outside the business think it is. Sometimes it seemed almost impossible to keep going. So, in a different sense, it does come back to funding.<\/p>\n

Editorially, the biggest challenge was giving the film a coherent throughline that interpreted the events for audiences in a comprehensible and entertaining way. There were so many directions we could have gone, so many aspects we might have focused on. But that challenge is the challenge that we love as filmmakers.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>The documentary \u201cLove Birds\u201d explores the work of married biologists George Hunt and Molly Warner, who made an unprecedented discovery while studying seagulls on one of California\u2019s Channel Islands. The film will be screened July 15 in a special Pride Week presentation by the San Diego Natural History Museum and the San Diego Bird Alliance. (Perfect Four Productions)<\/p>\n

Q: The most rewarding?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> The reception of the film has been beyond what we could have hoped. We did our best to tell a multilayered story, and to draw certain connections for audiences that we hope illuminate some big ideas that are as relevant now as ever. When people show us by their reactions or their words that they get that and the story lands, it is so gratifying. Awards are nice, too. We have qualified for Oscar consideration, which is pretty much a lifetime goal for any filmmaker.<\/p>\n

Q: What are you working on now? What\u2019s next?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> Besides my work as a post-production supervisor on TV shows and other people\u2019s cool projects, I\u2019ve got three independent films underway. One is about Hawaii\u2019s only endemic owl, called the Pueo, and the way queer native knowledge is changing the conversation about how to save it. The second is about pygmy seahorses, which are the size of your fingernail and live in coral. There\u2019s a gay scientist racing to finish the job of describing them before habitat destruction wipes them out. The third film concerns the groundbreaking underground comix artist Joyce Farmer, who was doing dark feminist humor about abortion in comic book form right when Roe v. Wade came down.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>The documentary \u201cLove Birds\u201d explores the work of married biologists George Hunt and Molly Warner, who made an unprecedented discovery while studying seagulls on one of California\u2019s Channel Islands. The film will be screened July 15 in a special Pride Week presentation by the San Diego Natural History Museum and the San Diego Bird Alliance. (Perfect Four Productions)
\nSpecial screening of \u201cLove Birds,\u201d followed by conversation with filmmaker Elliott Kennerson<\/p>\n

When:<\/strong> 7 p.m. July 15 (doors open at 6 p.m.)<\/p>\n

Where:<\/strong> San Diego Natural History Museum, Giant Screen Theater, 1788 El Prado, San Diego<\/p>\n

Tickets:<\/strong> $15<\/p>\n

Online:<\/strong> bit.ly\/LoveBirds-FilmScreening<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego filmmaker Elliott Kennerson has a long history with nature filmmaking, and his latest project \u2014 \u201cLove…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":929851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,34835,171,1370,53,8738,3549,3550,7264,1072,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-929850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-america","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-del-mar","tag-entertainment","tag-latest-headlines","tag-movies","tag-north-county","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-sandiego","tag-things-to-do","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116907074326203855","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=929850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/929851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=929850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=929850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}